Course Info

Browse the Course Catalog Course Search

Course Info for PHYS - 304 - 01, Fall 2022
Class number: 3292 Title: Statistical & Thermal Physics Department: Physics
Career: Undergraduate Component: Lecture Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 15 Current enrollment: 5 Available seats: 10
Start date: Tuesday, September 6, 2022 End date: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: MWF: 10:00AM-10:50AM, LIB - 174 Instructor(s): Palandage, Kalum
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite: C- or better in Physics 141L and Mathematics 132.
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).
Course Syllabus: view syllabus