PHY 3513 - Syllabus

Download the syllabus: WORD, PDF

Instructor: Dr. Stephen Hill

Class Hours: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, period 7 (1:55–2:45pm) in 1101 NPB

Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 2:45 - 3:50 pm (after class), or any other time you can find me.

Textbook:Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics, by Ashley Carter (Prentice Hall)

Grading

• Weekly graded homework will count 30% towards your final grade
• In-class quizzes will count 10% towards your final grade
• The best 2 scores out of 3 in-class exams are worth 30% (15% each) towards your final grade
• A cumulative 2 hour final exam will be worth 30% towards your final grade

Homework assignments will consist of 4 or 5 questions taken mainly from the end of chapter problems in Carter (though they may often be modified slightly). Please note that there are errors in several of the end of chapter problems. I will do my best to fix these for the assigned problems. Come and see me if you think there are errors in any of the other problems. Exams and homework assignments will be graded by a graduate teaching assistant. In addition to the exams and homeworks, I will give short unannounced multiple choice quizzes in class roughly once per week.

For more detailed instructions concerning exam policy, and submission and grading of the weekly homework assignments, consult the course web site: http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~hill/teaching/2005/3513/. The course web page also contains the following: summaries of some classes (PowerPoint or pdf), along with the relevant reading sections in the text book; solutions to the exams and some practice exam problems; a tentative schedule for the semester; and links to other useful learning resources. You are responsible for keeping up to date with any important announcements made during class or via the course web page.

PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK QUESTIONS IF ANYTHING IN CLASS IS UNCLEAR OR IF YOU ARE CURIOUS ABOUT SOMETHING THAT I DID NOT DISCUSS. Student participation in the lectures is openly encouraged. Indeed, the instructor will often engage the class in discussion - so, stay awake!

Important dates:

Additional textbooks:

Concepts in Thermal Physics, Stephen J. Blundell and Katherine M. Blundell, (Oxford University Press).

Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory, and Statistical Thermodynamics, 3rd edition, by F. W. Sears and G. L. Salinger (Addison-Wesley).

Course Overview:

During your studies of classical mechanics (either 2048 or 2060) you learned to deal very precisely with problems involving conservative forces acting on systems of masses, e.g. you could predict the frequency of oscillation of a frictionless pendulum, or the period of a planet orbiting the sun. However, it cannot have escaped your attention that a ‘real’ pendulum will eventually lose its mechanical energy (U + K) because of friction and air resistance, as does the space shuttle when it enters the earth’s atmosphere. Where does this energy go? It is dissipated in the form of heat, which we perceive as a rise in temperature not only of the system of masses (i.e. the pendulum, or the space shuttle), but also of the surroundings. These processes lie at the heart of classical thermodynamics.

Classical thermodynamics makes no attempt to explain the underlying causes of heat transfer. In fact, the microscopic nature of matter (either solid, liquid, or gas) is entirely irrelevant. Thermodynamics instead provides a theoretical framework describing relationships between macroscopically measurable properties of matter such as volume, density, compressibility, etc.. As a consequence, the theory is relatively simple and has proven to be applicable to a wide variety of processes. Having said this, several distinctly unfamiliar concepts will arise which may make you uncomfortable at first. To begin with, temperature is a central concept in thermodynamics, yet its definition is impossible in terms of familiar mechanical variables. Even the definition of heat has to be carefully thought out; it is this definition that enables us to relate thermal and mechanical processes, i.e. heat is in fact equivalent to mechanical work. This eventually leads to the study of heat engines and heat transfer between thermal reservoirs, and to the concept of entropy.

This course will deal only with the classical theory of thermodynamics. If time permits, we may deal very briefly with the kinetic theory of gases (chapter 11) at the very end of the semester. The statistical (or quantum) theory of thermodynamics is covered in a later course (PHY4523). Unfortunately, a simple intuitive interpretation of entropy does not arise until one develops a microscopic statistical theory. However, you will learn from this course that entropy is central to our definition of temperature, and to thermodynamics as a whole.

The course will start out by introducing the fundamental postulates of classical thermodynamics: the zeroth, first, second and third laws. We will also discuss equations of state and, eventually, entropy. Along the way, you will see many applications of the fundamental postulates. Later in the course, we will define a set of thermodynamic potentials. These, in turn, lead to the Maxwell relations, which then allow us to study phase transitions and phase equilibria.

This course assumes that you have studied Newtonian mechanics in a previous calculus-based physics course (i.e. PHY2048 or PHY2060).

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