PHYS 1201W Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Statistical Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Ideal Gas
Document Summary
Study of the relationship between mechanical and thermal energy - energy associated with the disordered motions of the atoms and molecules within a substance. Thermodynamics describes the behaviour of matter in terms of a few macroscopic variables such as temperature, volume, and pressure. Statistical mechanics started with the molecular interactions and calculates quantities that are taken from experiment in traditional thermodynamics. Heat flow = energy transferred from one substance to another because of a temperature difference. The quantity of energy transferred is the amount of heat entering or leaving the substance. First law of thermodynamics generalizes the fundamental law of energy conservation. The change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the heat entering the system minus the work done by the system. Second law of thermodynamics states that a quantity called the entropy tends to increase in all processes. Entropy change is related to the heat entering or leaving a system divided by its absolute temperature.
