Some Preliminaries

1. Furlough Program

For the past 10 years the CSU system has suffered chronic under-funding. This year, because of the state economic crisis, the budget cuts are draconian, $584 million, the worst ever in decades. The CSU administration is attempting to manage these cuts by dramatically increasing student fees and by furloughing almost all University employees, including faculty, staff, and administrators. A furlough means mandatory unpaid days off for employees; there are 18 of these this year for faculty.
For students this means that on some days the campus will be closed. The library will have shorter hours and many campus support services will be decreased or eliminated. It will, for example, be more difficult to get signatures to meet deadlines. Some classes you need may have been cut from the class schedule or are full.
I will be canceling class on Wednesday November 25th 2009 because of the furlough program. This day will not be a holiday; it is a very concrete example of how budget cuts have consequences. And I reserve the right to assign work on that day, even though we will not be meeting.
 
2. Review of 4-1-4 academic schedule

The Stanislaus campus currently has a 4-1-4 academic schedule; a 13 week fall semester, followed by a 4 week winter semester, and a 13 week spring semester. The campus administration is proposing that we move to an academic year comprising two 15 week semesters in fall and spring, with the winter semester being eliminated. The University Educational Policies Committee (UEPC) is charged with evaluating this proposal, and as part of its deliberations is soliciting input from all campus constituents.
There is an online survey which has sections for faculty, staff, students, and administrators to give their input. Completion of the survey should take only a few moments. If you have not already filled out the survey then we encourage you to do so in order that your voice can be heard.

Course details

Texts

There are a number of suitable texts for this class. The selected text is "Thermal Physics" by Kittel and Kroemer (ISBN 0-7167-1088-9). This text was selected by Dr De Vries before I took over the class. I will use the same text, but likely will not follow the same chapter order.

You will also find it useful to have your introductory calculus based physics text available. I shall be using such a text heavily in the first three weeks of the semester. In principle any of the myriad texts for this class is suitable. I have placed a copy of "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" by Tipler and Mosca in N 136 for you to refer to. Please leave it in there for others to use.

Objectives

Thermal physics comprises two main parts; classical thermodynamics of macroscopic systems, and statistical mechanics of the microscopic particles which make up a larger object.. Although they approach he subject of thermal physics from two different angles they are entirely consistent. The key is in understanding how they blend together.

Classical Thermodynamics ignores the discrete nature of matter, its atoms and molecules, and treats matter as continuous. In this section of the class we will be looking at the following topics
 

• Thermodynamic systems, and equations of state
• Work
• First Law
• Second Law
• Entropy
• Maxwell's relations
• Changes of State, Phase transitions


In the statistical mechanics part of the class we shall look at
 

• Partition function
• Maxwell Boltzmann statistics
• Fermi-Dirac statistics
• Bose-Einstein statistics
• Thermal properties of solids

Mathematics

Some understanding of mathematics is needed for this class, including
• Statistics & Probability
• Gaussian Distribution
• Combinations and Permutations
• Definite and Indefinite Integrals


as well as some basic physical systems
 

• Energy levels
• Particle in a box, density of states
• Harmonic Oscillator


I shall be using the fourth hour of the week to go over the mathematics, in preparation for the statistical mechanics part of the class in the last 5 to 6 weeks of the semester.

Course assessment

This is meant to be a practical class, and grading will reflect this. The largest portion of the grade will come from in-class and homework assignments.

• 60% - assignments
• 20% - midterm devoted to classical thermodynamics (date to be announced)
• 20% - final (given out on the last day of class, to be returned no later than December 18^th 2009.)

Assignments

• Assignment 1 - due Friday September 18^th 2009
• Assignment 2 - due Friday September 25^th 2009
• Assignment 3 - due Friday October 2^nd 2009
• Assignment 4 - due Friday October 9^th 2009
• Assignment 5 - due Wedneday October 14^th 2009
• Assignment 6 - due Monday October 19^th 2009
• Assignment 7 - due Friday October 23^rd 2009^a
• Assignment 8 - due Wedneday October 28^th 2009
• Assignment 9 - due Monday November 30^th 2009
• Assignment 10 - due Wednesday December 2^nd 2009

• Isobaric expansion coefficient = 1.78 x 10^-4 K^-1
• Isothermal compressibility = 3.88 x 10^-6 atm^-1
• Density = 13,600 kg/m³
• Specific heat (at constant pressure) = 140 J/kg/K