Undergraduate Course: Thermodynamics (PHYS09021)

Course Outline
School	School of Physics and Astronomy	College	College of Science and Engineering
Course type	Standard	Availability	Available to all students
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 9 (Year 3 Undergraduate)	Credits	10
Home subject area	Undergraduate (School of Physics and Astronomy)	Other subject area	None
Course website	http://www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/teaching/course-notes/notes/list/57	Taught in Gaelic?	No
Course description	An introduction to equilibrium thermodynamics. The First and Second laws of thermodynamics are introduced, along with the concepts of temperature, internal energy, heat, entropy and the thermodynamic potentials. Applications of thermodynamic concepts to topics such as heat engines, the expansion of gases and changes of phase are considered. The Third Law, and associated properties of entropy, complete the course.

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites	Students MUST have passed: Foundations of Mathematical Physics (PHYS08024) OR ( Applicable Mathematics 4 (Phys Sci) (MATH08017) AND Mathematical Methods 4 (Phys Sci) (MATH08018)) OR ( MP2A: Vectors, Tensors and Fields (PHYS08032) AND MP2B: Dynamics (PHYS08033)) Students MUST have passed: Physics 2A (PHYS08022) AND Physics 2B (PHYS08023)	Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	None
Additional Costs	None

Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites	None
Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus?	Yes

Course Delivery Information

Delivery period: 2011/12 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)						WebCT enabled: Yes		Quota: None
Location	Activity	Description	Weeks	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
King's Buildings	Lecture		1-11	10:00 - 10:50
King's Buildings	Lecture		1-11				10:00 - 10:50
King's Buildings	Tutorial		2-11	17:10 - 18:00	or 17:10 - 18:00		or 17:10 - 18:00
First Class	First class information not currently available
Additional information	Workshop/tutorial sessions, as arranged.
Exam Information
Exam Diet	Paper Name		Hours:Minutes
Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May)			2:00
Resit Exam Diet (August)			2:00

Delivery period: 2011/12 Semester 1, Part-year visiting students only (VV1)						WebCT enabled: No		Quota: None
Location	Activity	Description	Weeks	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
King's Buildings	Lecture		1-11	10:00 - 10:50
King's Buildings	Lecture		1-11				10:00 - 10:50
King's Buildings	Tutorial		2-11	17:10 - 18:00	or 17:10 - 18:00		or 17:10 - 18:00
First Class	Week 1, Monday, 10:00 - 10:50, Zone: King's Buildings. LTB - JCMB
Additional information	Workshop/tutorial sessions, as arranged.
Exam Information
Exam Diet	Paper Name		Hours:Minutes
Main Exam Diet S1 (December)			2:00

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course it is intended that a student will be able to: 1)State the Zeroth, First, Second and Third Laws of thermodynamics, if appropriate in different but equivalent forms and demonstrate their equivalence 2)Understand all the concepts needed to state the laws of thermodynamics, such as 'thermodynamic equilibrium', 'exact' and 'inexact' differentials and 'reversible' and 'irreversible' processes 3)Use the laws of thermodynamics (particularly the first and second laws) to solve a variety of problems, such as the expansion of gases and the efficiency of heat engines 4)Understand the meaning and significance of state variables in general, and of the variables P; V; T;U; S in particular, especially in the context of a simple fluid, and to manipulate these variables to solve a variety of thermodynamic problems 5)Define the enthalpy H, Helmholtz function F and the Gibbs function G and state their roles in determining equilibrium under different constraints 6)Manipulate (using suitable results from the theory of functions of many variables) a variety of thermodynamic derivatives, including a number of 'material properties' such as heat capacity, thermal expansivity and compressibility, and solve problems in which such derivatives appear 7)Sketch the phase diagram of a simple substance in various representations and understand the concept of an 'equation of state' (as exemplified by the van der Waals' equation for a fluid) and the basic thermodynamics of phase transitions 8)Demonstrate a grasp of the orders of magnitudes of the various central quantities involved

Assessment Information
Coursework, 10% Degree Examination, 90% Visiting Student Variant Assessment Coursework, 10% Degree Examination, 90%

Special Arrangements
None

Additional Information
Academic description	Not entered
Syllabus	* Concepts: State variables and state functions, temperature scales and some useful mathematics. * Reversible and irreversible processes * Ideal and non-ideal fluids * Cyclic processes, heat engines, Carnot's theorem and its corollaries. * Entropy * Legendre transforms, Maxwell relations and analytic thermodynamics * Phase transitions: discontinuous, continuous, and non symmetry-breaking. * The 3rd law * The application of thermodynamics to different physical systems including examples from astrophysics and superconductivity * Chemical potential and open systems
Transferable skills	Not entered
Reading list	Not entered
Study Abroad	Not entered
Study Pattern	Not entered
Keywords	Therm

Contacts
Course organiser	Prof Andrew Huxley Tel: (0131 6)51 7053 Email: a.huxley@ed.ac.uk	Course secretary	Miss Laura Gonzalez-Rienda Tel: (0131 6)51 7067 Email: l.gonzalez@ed.ac.uk