Transcription of Microstates and Macrostates - Physics Department
{{id}} {{{paragraph}}}
Microstates and Macrostates . Multiplicities. The Second Law. Physics 3700. Microstates and Macrostates . Multiplicities. The Second Law. Relevant sections in text: Microstates and Macrostates What is thermal equilibrium? What is temperature? Why does heat transfer energy from higher to lower temperatures? One cannot get very far with such questions in tra- ditional thermodynamics because thermal equilibrium, heat and temperature are more or less defined via the laws of thermodynamics. We have introduced the concepts of tempera- ture and heat via the zeroth and first laws. Our next subject will be the second law, which characterizes (among other things) heat transfer of energy and relaxation to equilibrium. To understand the origins and meaning of the second law it is instructive to take a pretty general look at the microscopic statistical behavior of a macroscopic system.
energy, pressure, volume, etc. ) corresponds to many possible states of the constituents ... tion of the model, whether we use phonons or atomic oscillators we get pretty much the same basic results (although the frequencies of the oscillators di er signi cantly in the two
Domain:
Source:
Link to this page:
Please notify us if you found a problem with this document:
{{id}} {{{paragraph}}}