Thermodynamics / Statistical Mechanics

Spring 2025 Syllabus

         Course information.  Introduction to Thermodynamics / Statistical Mechanics.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L01; Entropy sometimes BUT NOT ALWAYS means "disorder" Entropy and salad dressing

         Temperature.  See also Temperature from Wikipedia; 
Week 1   The Mechanical Universe: 45. Temperature and Gas Laws;  Comparison of temperature scales.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L02

         The Laws of Thermodynamics.
         See also Perpetual Motion Machine, Perpetual Motion from Wikipedia, Rachet and Pawl from the Feynman Lectures.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L03; Unit relations in the old SI with the lonely kelvin; Water bucket story not in equilibrium - 
         the professor was Nigel Goldenfeld at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) hw1
         Joseph Black and Latent Heat
         Credit Where It's Due 32 minutes, Connections by James Burke



         Zeroth Law; First Law; extensive vs. intensive; PV diagrams; exact differentials.
         See also Zeroth Law from Wikipedia; First Law by Professor Valery Kiryukhin at Rutgers.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L04;
Week 2	 
         Watch Mechanical Universe episode 46. Engine of Nature .  Equilibria; Third Law; Second Law.
         See also Third Law of Thermodynamics from Wikipedia; Carnot Engine from Wikipedia; 
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L05;


         The Carnot Engine.  Heat Engines: the Carnot Cycle; The Einstein Szilard Refrigerators.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L06; L06new;
         Sadly Cannot cycle

         Heat capacities; Adiabats; Carnot Efficiency; Clausius theorem
Week 3   Watch Episode 47: Entropy - The Mechanical Universe
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L06;L06new;

         Thermodynamic Potentials; Legendre transformation.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L07;L07new;


         Watch ph12c lecture01 counting ; Maxwell relations; Gibbs-Duhem relation.
         See also A Mnemonic Scheme for Thermodynamics by J.-C. Zhao, MRS Bulletin, Volume 34, Feb 2009; Ice bomb
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L07;

Week 4   Gaussian Integrals; Stirling's approximation.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L08; L08new;

         Hyperareas and hypervolumes of N-dimensional spheres.  See also Unit sphere.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L08;


         Kinetic theory of gases.  See also N-sphere from Wikipedia.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L09; L09b.

Week 5   Watch ph12c lecture02 entropy .  See also Lagrange multipliers.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L10.

         Watch ph12c lecture03 Boltzmann .  See also POSTNET.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L11; Polytropes.


         See also Partition Function.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L12.

Week 6
          
27 Mar R Midterm Exam - online in the lecture time slot, open book, open notes.
          

         See also Root mean square.
         Zoom video; Lecture notes: L13; L13new.



         See also Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.
         Zoom video - Speaker view; Zoom video - Shared screen;  Lecture notes: L13.
Week 7
         Watch ph12c lecture04 ideal gas .  See also Ensembles.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: Ensembles.



         Watch ph12c lecture05 Planck ; See also Pierre Curie's Law.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L14.

         Watch ph12c lecture06 Debye ;
Week 8   Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L15, L15b.

         Watch ph12c lecture07 Gibbs ;
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L15; Partition function supplementary notes.



         See also Below Absolute Zero: Negative Temperatures Explained, Negative temperature, What is negative temperature?.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L15, Chemical Potential for an Ideal Gas.

         Watch ph12c lecture08 indistinguishable ;
Week 9   Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L16.

         Watch ph12c lecture09 Fermi ; See also Sackur-Tetrode Equation, Gibbs paradox; Poincaré recurrence theorem;
         Ergodic Hypothesis; Liouville's theorem; Boltzmann brains; Richard Feynman on Boltzmann Brains.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L16.  Blackbody radiation.
         Matt Parker 3-sided coin


         See also:
	 Binomial distribution, Normal Distribution (Gaussian), Central limit theorem, Random walk
	 Random walk - 1 dimension, Random walk - 2 dimensions, Random walk - 3 dimensions, Polya's random walk constants
	 Brownian motion, Investigations on the Theory of the Brownian Movement by Albert Einstein
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L19.

Week 10   Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L19.

         See also
         Microcanonical ensemble; Canonical ensemble; Grand canonical ensemble; Isothermal-isobaric ensemble a.k.a. Gibbs Ensemble.
         Zoom video;  


         Watch ph12c lecture10 Bose ;
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L21.

         Watch ph12c lecture11 BEC ;
Week 11  Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L21, QM rotations.

         Watch ph12c lecture12 thermo ;  See also Ultraviolet catastrophe.
         See also Quantization of the electromagnetic field to see why the photon energy levels are the same as the quantum harmonic oscillator.  Kelvin and the end of physics.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L22. Heat Capacity of a Crystal. Einstein-Debye


         Watch ph12c lecture13 Gibbs free energy ;
         See also Blackbody radiation; Planck's Law; Thermodynamics of Blackbody Radiation by Robert E. Kelly; Photon Gas.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L23.

         See also Some paradoxes, errors, and resolutions concerning the spectral optimization of human vision by Bernard H. Soffer and David K. Lynch, Am. J. Phys. 67(11), November 1999; 
Week 12  Why are there no green stars? - Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy Blog; Partition function of hydrogen.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L24. Degenerate Fermi Gas

         See also VI. Quantum Statistical Mechanics from MIT OpenCourseware.
         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L25; new L25.


         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L26.

Week 13  Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L27.

         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L28. Lecture notes: L29.
         Spin isomers of hydrogen






         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L30. Superconductivity from the Feynman Lectures, audio.

Week 14  Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L31.

         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L32.
         Critcal point for phase transition


         Zoom video;  Lecture notes: L33.

	 Lecture notes: L34
	 Lecture notes: L35
	 Lecture notes: L36
	 Lecture notes: L37
	 Lecture notes: L38
	 Lecture notes: L39
	 Lecture notes: L40
	 Lecture notes: L41
	
Nonideal Classical Gases by Daniel Arovas	 
	 


14 May W Final Examination - online -  open book and  notes, 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM