THERMODYNAMIC PHYSICS

  A system undergoes a thermodynamic process when there is some sort of energetic change within the system, generally associated with changes in pressure, volume, internal energy (i.e. temperature), or any sort of heat transfer.
There are several specific types of thermodynamic processes that have special properties:

• Adiabatic process - a process with no heat transfer into or out of the system.
• Isochoric process - a process with no change in volume, in which case the system does no work.
• Isobaric process - a process with no change in pressure.
• Isothermal process - a process with no change in temperature.

States of Matter:

The 5 states of matter

• gas
• liquid
• solid
• plasma
• superfluid (such as a Bose-Einstein Condensate)

Phase Transitions

• condensation - gas to liquid
• freezing - liquid to solid
• melting - solid to liquid
• sublimation - solid to gas
• vaporization - liquid or solid to gas

Heat Capacity:

The heat capacity, C, of an object is the ratio of change in heat (energy change - denoted by delta-Q) to change in temperature (delta-T).

C = delta-Q / delta-T

The heat capacity of a substance indicates the ease with which a substance heats up. A good thermal conductor would have a low heat capacity, indicating that a small amount of energy causes a large temperature change. A good thermal insulator would have a large heat capacity, indicating that much energy transfer is needed for a temperature change.

Ideal Gas Equations:

There are various ideal gas equations which relate temperature (T₁), pressure (P₁), and volume (V₁). These values after a thermodynamic change is indicated by (T₂), (P₂), and (V₂). For a given amount of a substance, n (measured in moles), the following relationships hold:

Boyle's Law (T is constant):
P₁V₁ = P₂V₂ Charles/Gay-Lussac Law (P is constant):
V₁/T₁ = V₂/T₂
Ideal Gas Law:
P₁V₁/T₁ = P₂V₂/T₂ = nR

R is the ideal gas constant, R = 8.3145 J/mol*K. For a given amount of matter, therefore, nR is constant, which gives the Ideal Gas Law.

Laws of Thermodynamics:

• Zeroeth Law of Thermodynamics - Two systems each in thermal equilibrium with a third system are in thermal equilibrium to each other.
• First Law of Thermodynamics - The change in the energy of a system is the amount of energy added to the system minus the energy spent doing work.
• Second Law of Thermodynamics - It is impossible for a process to have as its sole result the transfer of heat from a cooler body to a hotter one.
• Third Law of Thermodynamics - It is impossible to reduce any system to absolute zero in a finite series of operations. This means that a perfectly efficient heat engine cannot be created.

The Second Law & Entropy:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics can be restated to talk about entropy, which is a quantitative measurement of the disorder in a system. The change in heat divided by the absolute temperature is the entropy change of the process. Defined this way, the Second Law can be restated as:

In any closed system, the entropy of the system will either remain constant or increase.

By "closed system" it means that every part of the process is included when calculating the entropy of the system.

More About Thermodynamics:

In some ways, treating thermodynamics as a distinct discipline of physics is misleading. Thermodynamics touches on virtually every field of physics, from astrophysics to biophysics, because they all deal in some fashion with the change of energy in a system. Without the ability of a system to use energy within the system to do work - the heart of thermodynamics - there would be nothing for physicists to study. That having been said, there are some fields use thermodynamics in passing as they go about studying other phenomena, while there are a wide range of fields which focus heavily on the thermodynamics situations involved. Here are some of the sub-fields of thermodynamics:

• Cryophysics / Cryogenics / Low Temperature Physics - the study of physical properties in low temperature situations, far below temperatures experienced on even the coldest regions of the Earth. An example of this is the study of superfluids.
• Fluid Dynamics / Fluid Mechanics - the study of the physical properties of "fluids," specifically defined in this case to be liquids and gases.
• High Pressure Physics - the study of physics in extremely high pressure systems, generally related to fluid dynamics.