Thermal and Statistical Physics

Deriving Planck's law of blackbody radiation. How to use it to tell the temperature of a star. Discussions about stars -- absorption lines and redshifts, and how to get the temperature correct anyway. Student demo of astronomy course software -- very cool. Counting photons is like counting phonons. (Phonons are quantized vibrational modes in solids.) Visual aid: model of a squishy crystal to demonstrate phonons. Debye law of heat capacity due to phonons in solids. Lecture Audio

Deriving the ideal gas law. Equipartition Theorem. Entropy of Mixing. Hot things glow -- or how night vision goggles work (Planck blackbody radiation). Analyzing star spectra. Class discussions: Mixing 2 colors of Kool-Aid, and how to make heavy Kool-Aid out of deuterated water. Why deuterated water can extend the snow skiing season, but is unfortunately toxic. Lecture Audio

Helmholtz Free Energy is the right energy to use when temperature and volume are used as control variables. Free Energy and the Partition Function. Maxwell Relations -- you can derive them all. Legendre Transforms. Ideal Gas. Quantum Concentration. Why some slow processes are still irreversible, as with toast and frogs. Lecture Audio

Boltzmann Factor, Partition Function and how to calculate everything else from it. Live near lakes because they have a high heat capacity. Energy and Heat Capacity of a two state system, Definition of a reversible process, Definition of pressure, The Thermodynamic Identity, Thermodynamically Conjugate variables. Digressions: Is toasting bread a reversible process? Do microwaves get water hotter than other heating methods? Lecture 4 Audio

Fundamental assumption of statistical mechanics: all accessible states are equally likely. Ensemble averages are weighted averages. Two systems in thermal contact. How to define entropy and temperature. How to take partial derivatives. The laws of thermodynamics. Lecture 3 Audio

Why is the most probable configuration important? Multiplicity Function is a gaussian in the two-state system. Weighted averages. Introduction to partition function. Lecture 2 Audio

Lightning fast review of quantum mechanics. Stationary quantum states, accessible states, fundamental assumptions of statistical mechanics. How to get from the microscopic quantum level to the macroscopic behavior you observe. We visualized atomic orbitals using Atom in a Box by Dean Dauger. Lecture 1 Audio --- Lecture Audio --- Lecture Audio