Thermal and Statistical Physics
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Lecture 1: Accessible States
22 Aug 2006
Contributed by Lukas
It's a new year, with new lectures. Today is an introduction to Thermal and Statistical Physics. We do a lightning-fast review of quantum mechanics,...
New Course: Solid State Physics
10 Jan 2006
Contributed by Lukas
Prof. Carlson is teaching a new course this semester, entitled Solid State Physics.Here is a taste of the new course, which has a separate podcast in ...
Final Review 2
12 Dec 2005
Contributed by Lukas
This is a final review for the last 1/4 of the course. This is a very short lecture, because we had a field trip to go see the prestigious Bagwell Lec...
Final Review 1
05 Dec 2005
Contributed by Lukas
This is a final review for the first 3/4 of the course.Lecture Audio
Lecture 24: Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem
01 Dec 2005
Contributed by Lukas
We finish two more examples of the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem. This is a theorem that pops up everywhere! It means that the very same microscopic...
Lecture23: Brownian Motion and Diffusion
30 Nov 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Brownian motion was discovered by a botanist named Brown, when he looked at water under a microscope, and observed pollen grains "jiggling" about in i...
Lecture 22: Nucleation in First Order (Abrupt) Phase Transitions
16 Nov 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Supercooling Demonstration (thanks to special guest Prof. Ken Ritchie): Put filtered water in a plastic bottle in your freezer for, say, 4 hours. N...
Lecture 21: Alloys, Mixing, and Phase Separation
15 Nov 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Oil and water -- they don't mix. Or do they? Due to the entropy of mixing, any tiny amount of impurity is highly favored entropically. This means t...
Lecture 20: Landau Theory of Phase Transitions; Oil, Water, and Alloys
10 Nov 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Now that we know what order parameters are (see last lecture), we'll use the order parameter of a phase to construct the Landau free energy. The Land...
Lecture 19: Symmetries, Order Parameters, and the Failure of Reductionism
08 Nov 2005
Contributed by Lukas
We finish the van der Waals equation of state, and use it to illustrate the liquid-gas phase transition. It turns out that at low pressure, the van d...
Lecture 18: Van Der Waals and Geckos
02 Nov 2005
Contributed by Lukas
We derive the shape of the phase boundary for solid to gas transitions (sublimation), examples being dry ice (CO2) or ice at low pressure. We derive ...
Lecture 17: Introduction to Phase Transitions
31 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
We finish discussing chemical reactions, including how fast they progress, and what a catalyst can do for you. Then we begin a new topic: phases of ...
Lecture 16: Gibbs Free Energy and Chemical Reactions
26 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
We define the Gibbs Free Energy, which is the right energy function to use when you can control temperature, pressure, and particle number. This mean...
Lecture 15: Refrigerators and Path Dependence of Work
24 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
How refrigerators work. Why you can't cool your apartment by leaving the refrigerator door open. How heat and work depend on which path is taken. H...
Midterm Exam
21 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
We had an exam Wednesday covering chapters 1-7. In the mean time, the podcasting story (which partly featured our class) was in the Chicago Tribune t...
Midterm Review
17 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
We're having a midterm exam Wednesday, and today is a review of everything in chapters 1-7 in the text, Kittel and Kroemer's Thermal Physics. Topics ...
Lecture 14: Engines
13 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Storytime with Thursday Next (Jasper Fforde), and her Uncle Mycroft's entropy-detecting entroposcope. Why are large-scale systems capable of producing...
Lecture 13: Bose Condensates
05 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
More about Bose condensates. They're really weird -- at the lowest temperature, all bosons flock to the lowest available state, producing a "Bose con...
Lecture 12: Reversible and Irreversible Expansions
03 Oct 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Now that we've derived absolutely everything about the ideal gas from scratch, it's time to do something useful with it! We'd like to eventually lear...
Lecture 11: Bose Gas and Ideal Gas
28 Sep 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Review of Fermions and Bosons. Review of Fermi Gas. All about the Bose gas, and its ditsrubution function. In the classical limit, the Fermi-Dirac ...
Lecture 10: Fermi-Dirac Distribution Function
26 Sep 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Why no two pieces of matter may occupy the same space at the same time. Fermions are antisocial; bosons are social. Bosonic examples: lasers and sup...
Lecture 9: Gibbs Factor and Gibbs Sum
21 Sep 2005
Contributed by Lukas
When the system and reservoir can trade particles, you can't use the Boltzmann factor and the partition function anymore. Instead, use the Gibbs fact...
Lecture 8: Chemical Potential
20 Sep 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing a new thermodynamically conjugate pair of variables: number of particles and chemical potential. Internal and external chemical potentia...
Lecture 7: Planck Blackbody Radiation
15 Sep 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Deriving Planck's law of blackbody radiation. How to use it to tell the temperature of a star. Discussions about stars -- absorption lines and redsh...
Lecture 6: Ideal Gas Law, Planck Blackbody Radiation
13 Sep 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Deriving the ideal gas law. Equipartition Theorem. Entropy of Mixing.Hot things glow -- or how night vision goggles work (Planck blackbody radiation)....
Lecture 5: Free Energy and Maxwell Relations
07 Sep 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Helmholtz Free Energy is the right energy to use when temperature and volume are used as control variables. Free Energy and the Partition Function. M...
Lecture 4: Partition Function and Thermodynamic Identity
31 Aug 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Boltzmann Factor, Partition Function and how to calculate everything else from it.Live near lakes because they have a high heat capacity. Energy and ...
Lecture 3: Entropy, Temperature, and the Laws of Thermodynamics
30 Aug 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Fundamental assumption of statistical mechanics: all accessible states are equally likely. Ensemble averages are weighted averages. Two systems in t...
Lecture 2: Multiplicity Function
24 Aug 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Why is the most probable configuration important? Multiplicity Function is a gaussian in the two-state system.Weighted averages. Introduction to part...
Lecture 1: What is Statistical Mechanics and Why Does It Work?
24 Aug 2005
Contributed by Lukas
Lightning fast review of quantum mechanics. Stationary quantum states, accessible states, fundamental assumptions of statistical mechanics. How to get...