Basic Information:

Instructor: Babar Ahmed Qureshi
email: [email protected]

TAs: Umar Ahsan, Muhammad Anadil, Joveria Baig, Abdul Haseeb, Syed Moeez Hassan, Amna Iqbal, Ahmed Khalid, Muhammad Usama

Text Books: Heat and Thermodynamics, Zemansky, Seventh Edition
                         Thermal Physics, Daniel Schroeder
There will also be weekly lecture notes available. Readings from text book will only be for extra understanding and not absolutely required.

Attending the lectures and recitations is mandatory. Tutorials are a great resource to revise the concepts, remove the difficulties and getting help on homeworks but are not mandatory.

Grading:

Midterm Exam:    25 %


Final Exam: 25 %

Quizes: 15 %
There will be frequent surprise quizes in class. That means you have to attend the lectures or your grade will be seriously affected.

Homework: 25 %
There will be a homework every week except for the weeks preceding midterm and finals. You can work with your peers but you must write your own solutions. Copying on homework will be considered a very serious offence. Copying on homework is like wasting your own time and opportunity so please act like grown ups and do not do it. If you have any problem in doing homework or are short of time, just go to one of the tutorials by the TAs and they will tell you how to get to the solutions.

Recitation: 10%
Recitation work will be graded. But chances are if you just show up and do whats being done there, you will get full 10 points.


Weekly Schedule

Week 1: Basic concepts
What are thermodynamic systems, thermodynamic equilibrium, state functions, zeroth law and temperature,Intensive and extensive variables, equations of states.

Week 2: 1st LawWork, calculation of P-V and other kinds of work, Adiabatic work and concept of heat, Internal energy function, 1st Law of thermodynamics.

Week 3: 2nd Law
Reversible and Irreversible processes, Engines and refrigerators, Statement of 2nd law in terms of heat and work flows, Carnot Cycle

Week 4: Entropy
Concept of entropy, 2nd law in terms of entropy, calculations of entropy changes, Combined 1st and 2nd law.


Week 5: Microscopic Origin of Entropy
Microstates Vs. Macrostates, Multiplicity of microstates, conditions for equilibrium, microscopic origin of irreversibility, Entropy and microstates,  Entropy of an ideal gas


Week 6: Probabilities
Review of probability concepts, probability calculations for example systems, oscillators, paramegnets 


Week 7: Interactions:
Microscopic meaning of temperature, pressure, heat and work. Open systems and chemical potential


Week 8: Boltzman Statistics
Canonical Distribution, Partition functions, Examples, heat capacities of monoatomic and diatomic gases,


Week 9: Chemical Equilibrium
More on Chemical potential, Chemical potential of ideal gas with Gibb's correction, Chemical potential for composite systems, condition for chemical equilibrium, ionization, creation and annihilation, Adbsorption, solutions and osmotic pressure.


Week 10: Phase Equilibrium and Free Energies
Phases transformation, Clausius-Clapeyron equation, vapour pressure, Helmholtz and Gibbs free energies and their extremal property.


Week 11: Thermal Radiation
Normal modes, Planck distribution, Black and brown bodies, thermal radiation, Wein's law, Lasers, Greenhouse effect. 


Week 12: Fermions at zero temperature
Fermions and Bosons, distribution of fermions at zero temperature, Fermi energy, Degeneracy pressure, Band theory and semiconductors.


Week 13: Additional Topics