FYS253 Thermal Physics

Teaching structure: One 2-hour lecture per week. One 2-hour problem solving class per week.

Content: The course covers fundamental topics in classical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Specifically, the course discusses the ideal gas; the first and second law; mechanical, thermal, and chemical (reaction) equilibria; thermodynamic identities, state functions (entropy, temperature, pressure, etc.), potentials (internal energy, enthalpy, free energy), and response functions (expansivity, compressibility, and heat capacities of solids and liquids); the equipartition theorem; entropy in reversible and irreversible processes; phase transformations and equilibria, and; mixtures and colligative properties.

The statistical mechanics part of the course discusses the kinetic theory of gases; the Boltzmann distribution; multiplicity and the partition function, and their connection to entropy, free energy, and other thermodynamic observables. These concepts are introduced using the Einstein model of solids and models for atoms, the ideal gas, and di-atomic molecules.