Instructor:
Mark W. Meisel, Department of Physics, University of Florida
Best Place to Find Me: NPB B133, Tel: 2-9147, Fax: 2-7709
Alternative Place to Find Me: NPB 2358, Tel: 2-8867
Email: meisel@phys.ufl.edu
Office Hours: W F 9th period (16:05 - 16:55) and by appointment.
Teaching Assistant:
Yonggang Yu, Department of Physics, University of Florida
Office: NPB 1222, Tel: 2-8975, Email: yonggang@phys.ufl.edu
Office Hours: Tu F 7th period (13:55 - 2:45)
Meeting Times:
M W F 8th period (15:00 - 15:50
hrs) in NPB 1011
Textbook:
R. Bowley and M. Sanchez, "Introductory Statistical Mechanics (2nd Edition)",
(Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999). Available from
Oxford
University Press.
Suggested Homework: (Solutions are available
on-line from UF Library
Reserve.)
Chapter 1: 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12.
Chapter 2: 4, 6, 8, 9, 13, 19.
Chapter 3: 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 20, 21.
Chapter 4: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14.
Chapter 5: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, 22, 23, 26.
Chapter 6: 2, 4, 6, 8, 9.
Chapter 7: 2, 4, 5, 10, 13, 16.
Chapter 8: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12.
Chapter 9: 1, 3, 4, 5, 9.
Chapter 10: 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15.
NOTE: Subject to change and tthers to be assigned later.
Mid-term Exams and Solutions: MTE
1 and
S1
,
S2 ,
S3,
S4,
S5 .
MTE 2 and
S1 ,
S2
,
S3,
S4
.
MTE3 and
S1
,
S2 ,
S3,
S4.
Final Exam: Wednesday,
30 April, 17:30 - 19:30 hrs (Final Exam Group 30E).
Final "Thermal
Physics" formula sheets and "Statistical
Physics" formula sheets in *.pdf formats, versions of 24 April 2003.
2003 Stat Mech Final Exam Pages:
Q1,
Q2,
Q3;
and Solutions
S1,
S2,
S3,
S4,
S5,
S6,
S7,
S8,
S9.
Other potentially useful (or interesting) links:
Johannes D. van der Waals, Nobel
Lecture 1910,
where
you may read about "the broad outlines of my equation of state and how
I arrived at it"
and find
the statement "It is great pleasure for me that an increasing number of
younger physicists
find the
inspiration for their work in studies and contemplations of the molecular
theory".
Work extracted from a single heat bath? Do you believe it?
Check it out: "Extracting Work from a Single Heat Bath via Vanishing
Quantum Coherence" ,
Science 299 (2003) 862-864.
Debate on "A Fresh Take on Disorder, or Disorderly Science",
by A. Cho, Science, News Focus, 23 Aug. 2002, p. 1268
rages with 3 Letters to the Editor in Science
300 (2003) 249-251, with the heading
"Revisiting Disorder and Tsallis Statistics".
No Thaw Flaw in the
Third Law!
"Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences", 2nd.
edition,
P.R. Bevington and D.K.
Robinson (McGraw-Hill, 1992).
"Quantum Engine Blasts Past High Gear" (what could this
be?), see
Science 295
(2002) p. 425.
"Is Tsallis Thermodynamics Nonextensive?", E. Vines and
A. Planes,
Physical Review Letters 88
(2002) 0200601-1.
"Entropy
at Work? A Bacteria Ballad" from Commentator Bill Harley,
National Public Radio (
NPR), 9 Feb. 2002.
"Taking the Temperature", B. Behringer,
Nature
415 (2002) 594-594.
Simple
comments about "temperature" and entropy of granular materials, as motived
the the research article:
"Testing
the thermodynamic approach to granular matter with a
numerical model of a decisive experiment",
H.A. Makse and J. Kurchan,
Nature
415 (2002) 614-617.
For a comment on the usefulness of numbering equations, see
"What's
wrong with these equations?" by N. David Mermin,
Physics Today
, October 1989, p. 9.
also reprinted in
"Boojums All the Way Through, Communicatin Science
in a Prosaic Age",
by N. David Mermin (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990).
"Great reading! Great graduation gift idea! Take
it down the Sawannee River!" -- MWM
Life arrived on Earth from an asteroid? "Thermodyanmically not
possible?!" -- MWM
But consider:
Archaea
bacteria which is: anaerobic (no O
2 ), known to survive
up to 350 C and down to -180 C,
can tolerate tremendous pressures (found at depths more than 2000 ft. in
ocean vents,
"eats" iron sulfides and magnetite to oxidize the Fe
2+ to generate
ATP,
known to survive high does of radiation.
(Undated notes supplied to MWM from ALP to suggest plausibility for the
idea.)
"Microbial Activity at Gigapascal Pressures", A. Sharma
et al. ,
Science
295 (2002) 1514-1516; and
the "lay discussion" about this paper
"Weight of the World on Microbes'
Shoulders",
J. Couzin,
Science 295
(2002) 1444-1445.
Non-blackbody radiation?
"Coherent emission of light by thermal sources", J.-J.
Greffet et al.,
Nature 416
(2002) 61-64.
Ultracold Matter, at least from the laser cooling viewpoint:
see the
"Nature Insight" for a collection of
articles, in
Nature 416
(2002) 205-246.
BEC "Video Games", see
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/index.pl
Information Theory and Entropy? see
"Entropy, Information,
and Computation",
J. Machta,
Am. J. Phys. 67
(1999) 1074.