Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Background
1.1 Heating and temperature
1.2 Some dilute gas relationships
1.3 The First Law of Thermodynamics
1.4 Heat capacity
1.5 An adiabatic process
1.6 The meaning of words
1.7 Essentials

Chapter 2 The Second Law of Thermodynamics
2.1 Multiplicity
2.2 The Second Law of Thermodynamics
2.3 The power of the Second Law
2.4 Connecting multiplicity and energy transfer by heating.
2.5 Some examples.
2.6 Generalization
2.7 Entropy and disorder
2.8 Essentials

Chapter 3 Entropy and Efficiency
3.1 The most important thermodynamic cycle: the Carnot cycle
3.2 Maximum efficiency
3.3 A practical consequence
3.4 Rapid change
3.5 The simplified Otto cycle
3.6 More about reversibility
3.7 Essentials
Chapter 4 Entropy in Quantum Theory
4.1. The density of states
4.2 The quantum version of multiplicity
4.3 A general definition of temperature
4.4 Essentials
Chapter 5 The Canonical Probability Distribution
5.1 Probabilities
5.2. Probabilities when the temperature is fixed
5.3 An example: spin paramagnetism
5.4 The partition function technique
5.5 The energy range
5.6 The ideal gas, treated semi-classically
5.7 Theoretical threads
5.8 Essentials

Chapter 6 Photons and Phonons
6.1 The big picture
6.2 Electromagnetic waves and photons
6.3 Radiative flux
6.4 Entropy and evolution (optional)
6.5 Sound waves and phonons
6.6 Essentials

Chapter 7 The Chemical Potential
7.1 Discovering the chemical potential
7.2 Minimum free energy
7.3 A lemma for computing the chemical potential
7.4 Adsorption
7.5 Essentials

Chapter 8 The Quantum Ideal Gas
8.1 Coping with many particles all at once
8.2 Occupation numbers
8.3 Estimating the occupation numbers
8.4 Limits: classical and semi-classical
8.5 The nearly classical ideal gas (optional)
8.6 Essentials

Chapter 9 Fermions and Bosons at Low Temperature
9.1 Fermions at low temperature
9.2 Pauli paramagnetism (optional)
9.3 White dwarf stars (optional)
9.4 Bose-Einstein condensation: theory
9.5 Bose-Einstein condensation: experiment
9.6 A graphical comparison
9.7 Essentials

Chapter 10 The Free Energies
10.1 Generalities about an open system
10.2 Helmholtz free energy
10.3 More on understanding the chemical potential
10.4 Gibbs free energy
10.5 The minimum property
10.6 Why the phrase "free energy"?
10.7 Miscellany
10.8 Essentials

Chapter 11 Chemical Equilibrium
11.1 The kinetic view
11.2 A consequence of minimum free energy
11.3 The diatomic molecule
11.4 Thermal ionization
11.5 Another facet of chemical equilibrium
11.6 Creation and annihilation
11.7 Essentials

Chapter 12 Phase Equilibrium
12.1 Phase diagram
12.2 Latent heat
12.3 Conditions for coexistence
12.4 Gibbs-Duhem relation
12.5 Clausius-Clapeyron equation
12.6 Cooling by adiabatic compression (optional)
12.7 Gibbs' phase rule (optional)
12.8 Isotherms
12.9 Van der Waals equation of state
12.10 Essentials

Chapter 13 The Classical Limit
13.1 Classical phase space
13.2 The Maxwellian gas
13.3 The Equipartition Theorem
13.4 Heat capacity of diatomic molecules
13.5 Essentials

Chapter 14 Approaching Zero
14.1 Entropy and probability
14.2 Entropy in paramagnetism
14.3 Cooling by adiabatic demagnetization
14.4 The Third Law of Thermodynamics
14.5 Some other consequences of the Third Law
14.6 Negative absolute temperatures
14.7 Temperature recapitulated
14.8 Why heating increases the entropy. Or does it?
14.9 Essentials

Chapter 15 Transport Processes
15.1 Mean free path
15.2 Random walk
15.3 Momentum transport: viscosity
15.4 Pipe flow
15.5 Energy transport: thermal conduction
15.6 Time-dependent thermal conduction
15.7 Thermal evolution: an example
15.8 Refinements
15.9 Essentials

Chapter 16 Critical Phenomena
16.1 Experiments
16.2 Critical exponents
16.3 Ising model
16.4 Mean field theory
16.5 Renormalization group
16.6 First-order versus continuous
16.7 Universality
16.8 Essentials

Epilogue
Appendix A Physical and Mathematical Data
Appendix B Examples of Estimating Occupation Numbers
Appendix C The Framework of Probability Theory
Appendix D Qualitative Perspectives on the van der Waals Equation

Updated 14 August 1998.