Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

PHY 3010

Thermodynamics describes phenomena and concepts typical of huge systems (e.g., temperature, entropy, work, heat) while statistical mechanics provides a bridge from the micro to the macro description of such systems (via micro-canonical, canonical, and grand canonical probability distributions). These concepts and methods are of central importance in physics but also in a wide range of other disciplines such as chemistry, material science, biology, ecology, engineering, complex systems, energy economics, and policies, etc. This course will cover the laws of thermodynamics, thermodynamic potentials, Boltzmann statistics, quantum statistics, etc.