Intended for beginning graduate students, the volumes in the series provide not only a complete survey of an area of theoretical physics but also an enormous number of worked examples and problems to show students how to apply the abstract principles to realistic problems. This particular volume covers: the basic definitions of thermodynamics, equilibrium and state variables; the first and second laws; phase transitions and chemical reactions; thermodynamic potentials; statistics of microscopic states and connection to the ...
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Intended for beginning graduate students, the volumes in the series provide not only a complete survey of an area of theoretical physics but also an enormous number of worked examples and problems to show students how to apply the abstract principles to realistic problems. This particular volume covers: the basic definitions of thermodynamics, equilibrium and state variables; the first and second laws; phase transitions and chemical reactions; thermodynamic potentials; statistics of microscopic states and connection to the entropy; the microcanonical, canonical and grand canonical ensembles; applications of Boltzmann statistics; quantum statistics and the density operator; ideal quantum systems; the ideal Bose gas and applications; the ideal Fermi gas; and applications to condensed-matter physics.
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