This textbook facilitates students’ ability to apply fundamental principles and concepts in classical thermodynamics to solve challenging problems relevant to industry and everyday life. It also introduces the reader to the fundamentals of statistical mechanics, including understanding how the microscopic properties of atoms and molecules, and their associated intermolecular interactions, can be accounted for to calculate various average properties of macroscopic systems. The author emphasizes application of the fundamental principles outlined above to the calculation of a variety of thermodynamic properties, to the estimation of conversion efficiencies for work production by heat interactions, and to the solution of practical thermodynamic problems related to the behavior of non-ideal pure fluids and fluid mixtures, including phase equilibria and chemical reaction equilibria. The book contains detailed solutions to many challenging sample problems in classical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics that will help the reader crystallize the material taught. Class-tested and perfected over 30 years of use by nine-time Best Teaching Award recipient Professor Daniel Blankschtein of the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, the book is ideal for students of Chemical and Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science, who will benefit greatly from in-depth discussions and pedagogical explanations of key concepts. Distills critical concepts, methods, and applications from leading full-length textbooks, along with the author’s own deep understanding of the material taught, into a concise yet rigorous graduate and advanced undergraduate text; Enriches the standard curriculum with succinct, problem-based learning strategies derived from the content of 50 lectures given over the years in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT; Reinforces concepts covered with detailed solutions to illuminating and challenging homework problems.

A master teacher presents the ultimate introduction to classical mechanics for people who are serious about learning physics "Beautifully clear explanations of famously 'difficult' things," -- Wall Street Journal If you ever regretted not taking physics in college -- or simply want to know how to think like a physicist -- this is the book for you. In this bestselling introduction to classical mechanics, physicist Leonard Susskind and hacker-scientist George Hrabovsky offer a first course in physics and associated math for the ardent amateur. Challenging, lucid, and concise, The Theoretical Minimum provides a tool kit for amateur scientists to learn physics at their own pace.

This text presents statistical mechanics and thermodynamics as a theoretically integrated field of study. It stresses deep coverage of fundamentals, providing a natural foundation for advanced topics. The large problem sets (with solutions for teachers) include many computational problems to advance student understanding.

A self-contained, mathematical introduction to the driving ideas in equilibrium statistical mechanics, studying important models in detail.

"A large number of exercises of a broad range of difficulty make this book even more useful…a good addition to the literature on thermodynamics at the undergraduate level." — Philosophical Magazine Although written on an introductory level, this wide-ranging text provides extensive coverage of topics of current interest in equilibrium statistical mechanics. Indeed, certain traditional topics are given somewhat condensed treatment to allow room for a survey of more recent advances. The book is divided into four major sections. Part I deals with the principles of quantum statistical mechanics and includes discussions of energy levels, states and eigenfunctions, degeneracy and other topics. Part II examines systems composed of independent molecules or of other independent subsystems. Topics range from ideal monatomic gas and monatomic crystals to polyatomic gas and configuration of polymer molecules and rubber elasticity. An examination of systems of interacting molecules comprises the nine chapters in Part Ill, reviewing such subjects as lattice statistics, imperfect gases and dilute liquid solutions. Part IV covers quantum statistics and includes sections on Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics, photon gas and free-volume theories of quantum liquids. Each chapter includes problems varying in difficulty — ranging from simple numerical exercises to small-scale "research" propositions. In addition, supplementary reading lists for each chapter invite students to pursue the subject at a more advanced level. Readers are assumed to have studied thermodynamics, calculus, elementary differential equations and elementary quantum mechanics. Because of the flexibility of the chapter arrangements, this book especially lends itself to use in a one-or two-semester graduate course in chemistry, a one-semester senior or graduate course in physics or an introductory course in statistical mechanics.

This textbook for graduates and advanced undergraduates in physics and physical chemistry covers the major areas of statistical mechanics and concludes with the level of current research. It begins with the fundamental ideas of averages and ensembles, focusing on classical systems described by continuous variables such as position and momentum, and using the ideal gas as an example. It then turns to quantum systems, beginning with diatomic molecules and working up through blackbody radiation and chemical equilibria. The discussion of equilibrium properties of systems of interacting particles includes such techniques as cluster expansions and distribution functions and uses non-ideal gases, liquids, and solutions. Dynamic behavior -- treated here more extensively than in other texts -- is discussed from the point of view of correlation functions. The text concludes with the problem of diffusion in a suspension of interacting hard spheres and what can be learned about such a system from scattered light. Intended for a one-semester course, the text includes several "asides" on topics usually omitted from introductory courses, as well as numerous exercises.

This introductory textbook for standard undergraduate courses in thermodynamics has been completely rewritten to explore a greater number of topics, more clearly and concisely. Starting with an overview of important quantum behaviours, the book teaches students how to calculate probabilities in order to provide a firm foundation for later chapters. It introduces the ideas of classical thermodynamics and explores them both in general and as they are applied to specific processes and interactions. The remainder of the book deals with statistical mechanics. Each topic ends with a boxed summary of ideas and results, and every chapter contains numerous homework problems, covering a broad range of difficulties. Answers are given to odd-numbered problems, and solutions to even-numbered problems are available to instructors at www.cambridge.org/9781107694927.