Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics

(4 Credits)

This course is about the behavior of macroscopic systems composed of many particles. Phenomena like the behavior of polyatomic gases, magnetism, thermal radiation, phase changes and many others can be understood through statistical mechanics. Topics include the relation of entropy to probability and energy to temperature, the laws of thermodynamics, Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-Einstein, and Fermi-Dirac statistics, equations of state for simple gases, and chemical and magnetic systems, and elementary theory of phase transitions.