Lecture Examples

This course is second in the series of undergraduate Statistical Physics courses and features comprehensive lecture notes and assignments. Course topics include probability distributions for classical and quantum systems; microcanonical, canonical, and grand canonical partition-functions and associated thermodynamic potentials; conditions of thermodynamic equilibrium for homogeneous and heterogeneous systems; non-interacting Bose and Fermi gases; mean field theories for real gases, binary mixtures, magnetic systems, polymer solutions; phase and reaction equilibria, critical phenomena; fluctuations, correlation functions and susceptibilities, and Kubo formulae; evolution of distribution functions: Boltzmann and Smoluchowski equations.

This module contains discussions on two and three dimensional graphs, histograms, scatterplots, boxplots, and data visualization, and provides links to a variety of relevant activities.

In this activity, students will calculate the mean, median, and mode of the salaries for the Angels and the Orioles baseball players. Questions about the exercise and links to Excel and TI-83 instructions. The data exists in Excel, TI-83, and text formats.

In this activity, students will perform a t-test to see if fecal coliform counts collected from Blackwater Creek in Lynchburg, Virginia differ before and after rain showers. Questions about the exercise and links to Excel and TI-83 instructions are given. The data exist in Excel, TI-83, and text formats.