Thermal Physics (PHYS232)
Review of Thermodynamics' laws: Zeroth, First, and Second Laws; Thermodynamic potentials; Legendre transformations; Maxwell relations; applications to various thermodynamic processes; Introduction to Black body radiation (treated more fully in Statistical Mechanics); Thermodynamic approach to phase transitions: van der Waals as example, continuous and discontinuous transitions, critical point; Third law; Chemical potential and open systems; Superconductivity and superfluidity as concepts; Statistical mechanical formulation of entropy; Entropy of mixing and the Gibbs paradox; Fermi-Dirac distribution; Bose-Einstein distribution; Thermal properties of black body radiation; Bose-Einstein condensation.