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PHY 418: Statistical Mechanics I
Prof. S. Teitel stte@pas.rochester.edu ---- Spring 2011

February

January | February | March | April | May

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
  1 2

lecture 7

microcanonical ensemble, density of states and connection to entropy, entropy of the ideal gas and problem of extensivity

HW #1 due

3 4 5
6 7

lecture 8

entropy of mixing and Gibbs' paradox, indistinguishable particles, canonical ensemble

8 9

lecture 9

Helholtz free energy and the canonical partition function, energy fluctuations, equivalence of canonical and microcanonical ensembles in the thermodynamic limit, average energy vs most probably energy, Stirling's formula

HW #2 due

10 11 12
13 14

lecture 10

factoring the canonical partition function for non-interacting objects, Maxwell velocity distribution revisited, the virial theorm

15 16

lecture 11

the equipartition theorem, elastic vibrations of a solid and the law of Dulong and Petit, paramagnetism of classical spins and the Curie law of paramagnetic susceptibility

17 18 19
20 21

lecture 12

entropy and information

HW #3 due

22 23

lecture 13

the grand canonical partition function and the grand potential, fluctuations in the number of particles

drop/add/audit deadline

24 25 26
27 28

lecture 14

fluctuations in the grand canonical ensemble, the grand canonical partition function for non-interacting particles, chemical equilibrium, a gas in equilibrium with a surface of absorption sites