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Class number:
3238
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Title: Statistical & Thermal Physics |
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Department: Physics |
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Career: Undergraduate |
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Component: Lecture |
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Session: Regular |
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Instructor's Permission Required: No |
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Grading Basis: Regular |
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Units: 1.00 |
| Enrollment limited to 15 |
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Current enrollment: 5 |
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Available seats: 10 |
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Start date: Tuesday, September 3, 2024 |
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End date: Wednesday, December 18, 2024 |
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Mode of Instruction: In Person |
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Schedule: MWF: 11:00AM-11:50AM, MC - 213 |
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Instructor(s): Palandage, Kalum |
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Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite: C- or better in Physics 141L and Mathematics 132. |
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Distribution Requirement: Meets Natural Science Requirement |
Course Description:
This course provides an intermediate-level presentation of basic principles of statistical physics with applications to scientific inference, stochastic phenomena, and thermodynamics. Classical thermodynamics describes the equilibrium properties and phase transformations of macroscopic physical systems in terms of relations independent of any atomic model of matter. Statistical physics, by contrast, provides a fundamental theoretical foundation for the thermodynamic relations in terms of the specific statistical laws obeyed by the elementary particles of matter and general considerations of probability theory. Together, thermodynamics and statistical physics provide the tools for studying the behavior of aggregates of particles far too numerous to be analyzed by solving directly the equations of motion of either classical or quantum mechanics. Among the concepts, systems, and processes to be discussed are heat, work, temperature, pressure, energy, entropy, chemical potential, chemical equilibria, gases, liquids, solids, solutions, neutron stars, and fluctuation phenomena (not necessarily in that order and subject to time constraints). |