PHY4513 Thermal and Statistical Physics, Spring 2007

Syllabus

Main course page

Credits: Three undergraduate credit hours (three graduate credit hours for PHY 5515).
Lectures: Tuesday and Thursday 11:00-12:15, UPL 109.
First day of class: Tuesday, January 9, 2007.
Office hours: Monday 5:00-6:00pm in KEN 209 (help session), Thursday 12:30-1:30pm in KEN 310, and by appointment.

Lecturer: Per Arne Rikvold.
Office: 310 Keen.
Tel.: (850) 644-6814/6011.
E-mail: rikvold@scs.fsu.edu

Description: The fundamental laws of thermodynamics and their application to simple systems. The kinetic theory of an ideal gas. An introduction to the classical and quantum statistical mechanics of weakly interacting systems.
Prerequisite: MAC 2313. Corequisite: PHY 3101.

Textbook: D. V. Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics (Addison Wesley Longman, San Francisco, 2000). http://physics.weber.edu/thermal/
Online supplemental materials by H. Gould and J. Tobochnik: http://stp.clarku.edu

Homework: Weekly, due every Tuesday.
Midterms: One hour during class time, twice.
First midterm: Thursday, February 22.
Second midterm: Thursday, March 22.
Final exam: Thursday, April 26, 7:30-9:30am. UPL 109.
Grading: Scale of 0-100%, based on weighted average of final exam (35%), two midterms (20% each), and homework solutions (25%).
Letter-grade cutoffs:
A- / B+: 90%
B- / C+: 70%
C- / D: 50%
D / F: 40%

About the course

Statistical and thermal physics concern the behavior of systems that are made up of very large numbers of microscopic units. Thus, they form the bridge between the descriptions of the macroscopic and the microscopic worlds. In your previous physics courses, you have typically learned to treat systems that consist of just one or a few "parts," such as a simple pendulum, the trajectory of a cannon ball, or planetary motion. You may even have been told that we cannot solve exactly anything more than a system of two interacting particles, such as a hydrogen atom or the orbit of a single planet orbiting its sun. In statistical and thermal physics we look at the problem from the other end: systems with a very large number of parts, such as the number of molecules in a mole of gas, Avogadro's Number, which is of the order of 10²³.
In this course I will take an approach in which we will be hopping back and forth between a classical thermodynamic description, using such macroscopic concepts as temperature and pressure, and a microscopic description in which we consider the collective behavior of atoms or molecules. In the latter description we shall find that temperature corresponds to average kinetic energy of the particles, and pressure to their average momentum as they bang against the walls of their container.
We will start with a discussion of energy and the First Law of Thermodynamics, which is just a way to express energy conservation. We will see the relations between energy and thermodynamic concepts such as temperature, heat, and work, and we will apply these concepts to the simplest of thermodynamic systems: the ideal gas, which we will look at, both from a macroscopic and a microscopic point of view.
Next, we will meet a concept that has no parallel in small systems: entropy. This will enable us to formulate The Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law, which is entirely startistical in nature, determines the direction of time. While you can run a movie of the collision of two billiard balls in reverse without its looking ridiculous, no-one has ever seen Humpty Dumpty jump back onto his shelf and become whole again.
Following this and some more examples, we will concentrate for some time on classical thermodynamics as applied to engines, refrigerators, and chemical systems. This will allow us to think about the maximum energy efficiency of a heat engine and why a refrigerator is essentially a heat engine "running in reverse." It will also let us put some order into the bewildering zoo of different thermodynamic potentials that one meets in chemistry and condensed-matter physics, such as the enthalpy and Gibbs' and Helmholtz's free energies.
In the final part of the course we will return to the microscopic point of view to study classical and quantum statistical mechanics in an more formal way. We will also take a brief look at phase transitions and critical phenomena and hopefully have some time to talk about how statistical physics can be applied in different branches of science, such as biology.

Reserve Materials at Dirac Science Library

H. Callen, Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics Second edition (Wiley, New York, 1985).
M.W. Zemansky and R.H. Dittman, Heat and Thermodynamics: an intermediate textbook 6th edition (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1981).

ADA Statement: Students with disabilities needing academic accommodation should: (1) register with and provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center; (2) bring a letter to the instructor indicating the need for accommodation and what type. Please do this during the first week of class.

Honor Code: Students are expected to uphold the Academic Honor Code published in the Florida State University Bulletin and the Student Handbook. The Academic Honor Systems of Florida State University is based on the premise that each student has the responsibility to (1) uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in the student's own work, (2) refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity in the university community, and (3) foster a high sense of integrity and social responsibility on the part of the university community.

Last Updated by PAR, January 3, 2007.
Please send comments or suggestions to rikvold@scs.fsu.edu