Concepts in Thermal Physics

by Blundell, Stephen J.; Blundell, Katherine M.

• ISBN13: 9780199562107
• ISBN10: 0199562105
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

An understanding of thermal physics is crucial to much of modern physics, chemistry and engineering. This book provides a modern introduction to the main principles that are foundational to thermal physics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The key concepts are carefully presented in a clear way, and new ideas are illustrated with copious worked examples as well as a description of the historical background to their discovery. Applications are presented to subjects as diverse as stellar astrophysics, information and communication theory, condensed matter physics and climate change. Each chapter concludes with detailed exercises.

Author Biography

Stephen Blundell did his undergraduate degree in Physics and Theoretical Physics at Peterhouse, Cambridge and his Ph. D. in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. He moved to the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford to take up an SERC research fellowship, followed by a Junior Research Fellowship at Merton College, where he began research in organic magnets and superconductors using muon-spin rotation. In 1997 he was appointed to a University Lectureship in the Physics Department and a Tutorial Fellowship at Mansfield College, Oxford, and was subsequently promoted to Reader and then Professor. He was a joint winner of the Daiwa-Adrian Prize in 1999 for his work on organic magnets.
Katherine Blundell did her undergraduate degree in Physics and Theoretical Physics at New Hall College, Cambridge and her Ph. D. in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. She moved to Oxford University Astrophysics department, holding a Junior Research Fellowship at Balliol College, an 1851 Research Fellowship, before taking up a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. Her research concentrates on radio galaxies and quasars. In 2005 she won a Leverhulme prize for her research, and became a Professor of Astrophysics in 2008.

Table of Contents

Preliminaries

Introduction

Heat

Probability

Temperature and the Boltzmann factor

Kinetic Theory Of Gases

The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution

Pressure

Molecular effusion

The mean free path and collisions

Transport And Thermal Diffusion

Transport properties in gases

The thermal diffusion equation

The First Law

Energy

Isothermal and adiobatic processes

The Second Law

Heat engines and the second law

Entropy

Information theory

Thermodynamics In Action

Thermodynamic potentials

Rods, bubbles and magnets

The third law

Statistical Mechanics

Equipartition of energy

The partition function

Statistical mechanics of an ideal gas

The chemical potential

Photons

Phonons

Beyond The Ideal Gas

Relativistic gases

Real gases

Cooling real gases

Phase transitions

Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac distributions

Quantum gases and condensates

Special Topics

Sound waves

Shock waves

Brownian motion and fluctuations

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics

Stars

Compact objects

Earth's atmosphere

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