Grading scheme, policies, test dates, course outline, learning goals
Syllabus
For the 2nd term of 2023-24 academic year (aka 2023W), section 201.
Calendar Description
Fundamentals of thermodynamics and statistical physics; entropy, laws of thermodynamics, heat engines, free energy, phase transitions, Boltzmann statistics, quantum statistics.
This course is eligible for Credit/D/Fail grading. To determine whether you can take this course for Credit/D/Fail grading, visit the Credit/D/Fail website. You must register in the course before you can select the Credit/D/Fail grading option.
Credits: 4
Pre-reqs: One of PHYS 102, PHYS 108, PHYS 118, PHYS 158, PHYS 153, SCIE 001.
Co-reqs: One of MATH 217, MATH 200, MATH 226, MATH 253, MATH 263.
Instructor
Professor: Steven Plotkin
- Offices: Hennings 401 and Chem/Phys A039
- Email: steve* (best way to get in touch)
- To ask questions about course material, please use Piazza
- My Homepage
- PHYS 203 Office Hours: Monday 5:00-6:00pm, Chem/Phys A039. When needed, ad hoc office hours will be scheduled and announced.
Teaching Assistants (TAs): Su Yu Ding (suyuding* ) and Laya Ghodsi (layaghodsi*)
*append “@phas.ubc.ca”
Learning sources and References
Required Textbook: “Thermal Physics” by Daniel V. Schroeder.
Any undergraduate textbook on thermodynamics and/or statistics can be used as an additional learning source. Your first year physics textbook might be a great place to start!
Additional online learning sources will be linked from the course content table.
Delivery mode
This course is scheduled as an in-person course, Tue and Thu, 9-11am, in Hennings 200.
Grading scheme and policies
Participation in class is expected. Material might be covered that is not available anywhere else. In-class worksheets and clicker questions will be used extensively. If you miss a lecture, please catch up before the next one. Lectures will not be recorded unless there are special circumstances (e.g. I may away from UBC be presenting my research at a conference). Participation grades will be awarded (see below).
Together with lecture material, Weekly Practice assignments are designed to prepare you for the typical questions on tests and the final exam.
| Participation | 5% | Lecture participation will be assessed through either clicker question participation or worksheets. You will not be graded on correctness for this portion of your grade. The participation grade will be scaled so that obtaining 80% of the points will result in a full 5/5 grade for this component. This should be sufficient to offer accommodations for occasional unavoidable absences, so there is no need to ask me for special accommodations for any given lecture. Further accommodations for excused absences will be made only for prolonged absences (longer than 1 week) with legitimate reasons for absence. If you cannot come to lecture: The ‘lecture notes’ link will contain slides ahead of the lecture, including clicker questions. If you are unable to attend in person (e.g. due to Covid where UBC policy advises you should stay home), you can email me your answers to the clicker questions before the lecture ends to get the associated credit. Worksheets will be due in the afternoon after the lecture, and you will be able to hand them in via a Canvas upload if you so desire. Worksheets will typically be posted the day/evening before the lecture. Late worksheets, if turned in within 24 hours after the deadline, will be graded at 25% off. |
| Homework | 20% | The Homework is divided into two components: Weekly Practice (16%) and Problem Sets (4%). The Weekly Practice assignments will be due every Tuesday, and will give you an opportunity to apply concepts learned in Lectures. These assignments will be through WebWork. You will be given multiple chances to get correct answers. The two lowest Weekly Practice scores will be dropped when computing your final grade. All Weekly Practice assignments carry equal weight, independent of the number of questions on each. Problem Sets will contain longer and more involved problems, and you will need to hand in detailed solutions. The questions on Problem Sets are not designed as test preparation, and they might extend the course material. You might find the Problem Sets very challenging and/or time-consuming; in that case, you are likely to obtain a higher grade in the course if you use your time to prepare for the tests and final exam instead. Late homework, if turned in within 24 hours after the deadline, will be graded at 25% off. Group discussion of these assignments is encouraged, but you yourself must obtain the answers you enter online and hand in. While working with other students, you may share your thinking. You may not make your answers or solutions available to others, or ask others to make their answers or solutions available to you. You may also not post WebWork or Problem Set questions anywhere online (forums, homework help websites, etc…). |
| Tests and Final exam | 75% | Tests will be administered during regular class time, and are closed-book. There are 3 exams, but the lowest exam will be automatically dropped. Your best 2 exams are each worth 15% of your grade, and in total the exams are worth 30% of your grade. The final exam is worth 45% of your grade. See Lecture 1 slides for two examples of the exam/final grade calculations. If a scheduled test/exam falls on one of your religious holidays, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can make alternative arrangements. A notice of at least two weeks is required. |
Passing requirements
To pass Physics 203 you must satisfy the following two requirements:
- Obtain an overall course grade of 50% and
- Obtain a grade above 50% on the weighted sum of the exam and final components: I.e. The calculated grades from the exams and the final, after dropping one exam.
Students that don’t meet requirement (ii) will be assigned their exam grade as their course grade, up to a maximum course grade of no higher than 45%.
Deadlines and Test dates
The three tests will be in the evenings of February 1, February 29 and April 2. Times are 6pm, room is Hebb 100, Chem B150, Hebb 100 respectively.
Weekly Practice assignments are due every Tuesday.
Course outline
The outline below should help give you the big picture of what we’ll discuss in the course. You may want to refer back to this during the course to see how the current topic fits into the big picture, and also see where we’re going. Some of the descriptions will probably make more sense after we have begun discussing that topic.
PART Ia: Preliminaries, Statistical Mechanics
We will start with an understanding of fluctuations in large random systems. We will then discuss the Fundamental Assumption of Statistical Mechanics, the zeroth law of Thermodynamics, and the difference between systems with fixed energy and fixed temperature. We will derive the Boltzmann factor, define the partition function and learn how to compute the energy stored in a system given its temperature. We will also learn how to construct partition functions for large systems from the partition functions of their components.
PART Ib: Fundamentals of Thermodynamics
We will start by carefully introducing the basic concepts of thermal physics: thermal equilibrium, temperature and heat. We will state the first law of Thermodynamics, and examine the conceptual differences and connections between energy, heat and work. We will derive properties (equation of state and internal energy) of ideal gas, then use those to study compression work under varying conditions. We will discuss changes in ideal gas under different conditions: constant temperature, constant volume, constant pressure and adiabatic. As an application, we will learn how to compute the efficiency of a heat engine.
PART Ic: Putting Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics together
We will introduce the concept of entropy, and tie it with the second law of thermodynamics. We will discuss temperature, pressure and chemical potential in terms of entropy, and introduce the fundamental identity of thermodynamics. We will discuss reversible and irreversible processes, mixing and identical particles. We will also revisit Boltzman factors and the partition function. Together, we should have a complete picture of how classical thermodynamics arises out of Statistical Mechanics.
PART II: Thermodynamics
In this part of the course, we will learn more thermodynamics and apply it to real life systems. We will discuss a variety of thermodynamical concepts such as free energy, Gibbs free energy, Maxwell identities and chemical equilibrium. Using these, we will understand phases of matter and phase transformations. Then, we will discuss heat engines and refrigerators: Thermal systems that run in a cycle. We will discuss theoretical limits on the efficiency of such cyclical processes and study the internal combustion engine, the steam engine and real refrigerators.
PART III: Statistical Mechanics
In the third part of the course, we will return to the microscopic point of view. We will link the central concept of a partition function to free energy. We will then derive results for several important classical and quantum mechanical systems: We will prove the equipartition theorem, derive the ideal gas law and study the heat capacity of solids. We will then allow the number of particles in a system to vary and introduce the Fermi-Dirac and the Bose-Einstein distributions, which account for quantum statistical properties. As applications, we will derive the blackbody spectrum, and examine quantum gases, including electrons in a metal and Bose-Einstein condensation. In the process, we will become comfortable with the tools of statistical mechanics and learn how to extract macroscopic thermodynamic data from a microscopic description.
Possible Special Lectures
Shannon Information Theory
Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics
Statistical mechanics of gene expression
Statistical mechanics of protein folding
The thermodynamics of Black Holes
Learning Goals
The broad learning goals and outcomes of the course are the following: A conceptual understanding of thermal physics, and the ability to apply this understanding to solve problems in a large variety of theoretical and real-life systems. In particular, you should be able to:
- Develop an understanding of the the basic concepts of thermodynamics (temperature, heat, entropy, free energy, etc…) and of the laws that govern them;
- Develop an appreciation of the universality of the laws of thermodynamics;
- Understand and be able to analyze qualitatively a variety of real life applications of thermodynamics, from phase transitions to engines, refrigerators and batteries;
- Understand the interplay of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics— how the universal laws of thermodynamics arise from stat mech via the connection between disorder and entropy;
- Understand and be able to apply to a new system the basic machinery of statistical mechanics (how to sum over all states with the appropriate weighting, and how to extract thermodynamic quantities from a stat mech calculation);
- Be able to analyze several classical and quantum statistical systems (Ideal gas, Einstein solid, Paramagnet, Black body radiation, Fermi gas) and understand their role in real life applications.
This course is also designed to improve many ‘soft skills’. You will practice:
- Fitting newly gained information into a growing framework of understanding,
- Connecting conceptual understanding with quantitative (mathematical) expressions (equations),
- Reflecting on your learning and how it relates beyond this course: Math courses, other physics courses, your understanding of how the universe works.
UBC provides resources to support student learning and to maintain healthy lifestyles but recognizes that sometimes crises arise and so there are additional resources to access including those for survivors of sexual violence. UBC values respect for the person and ideas of all members of the academic community. Harassment and discrimination are not tolerated nor is suppression of academic freedom. UBC provides appropriate accommodation for students with disabilities and for religious, spiritual and cultural observances. UBC values academic honesty and students are expected to acknowledge the ideas generated by others and to uphold the highest academic standards in all of their actions. Details of the policies and how to access support are available here.
UBC takes academic misconduct (this includes copying of homework, cheating on exams and plagiarism) very seriously, and the penalties are stiff. Penalties typically result in suspension from the university or expulsion from the university, and a permanent mark on your transcript in all cases. See sections on Academic Honesty and Standards and Academic Misconduct in the UBC Academic Calendar.
Copyright notice: all material in this course is copyrighted by Steven Plotkin (the instructor). It is provided online to you, the students registered in the course. You may not post, share or publish any of the course materials without explicit permission from the instructor (Steven Plotkin). This applies even to those portions of the course materials that are shared with the public by the instructor or other authorized agents. Sharing exam, test and/or quiz questions, or solutions to any questions posed in the course (including those in worksheets, homework, quizzes, tests, exams and any practice materials) will be investigated as academic misconduct.