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Full-Text Articles in Physics
Student Understanding Of The Boltzmann Factor, Trevor I. Smith, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson
Student Understanding Of The Boltzmann Factor, Trevor I. Smith, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson
Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship
We present results of our investigation into student understanding of the physical significance and utility of the Boltzmann factor in several simple models. We identify various justifications, both correct and incorrect, that students use when answering written questions that require application of the Boltzmann factor. Results from written data as well as teaching interviews suggest that many students can neither recognize situations in which the Boltzmann factor is applicable nor articulate the physical significance of the Boltzmann factor as an expression for multiplicity, a fundamental quantity of statistical mechanics. The specific student difficulties seen in the written data led us …
Identifying Student Difficulties With Heat Engines, Entropy, And The Carnot Cycle, Trevor I. Smith, Warren M. Christensen, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson
Identifying Student Difficulties With Heat Engines, Entropy, And The Carnot Cycle, Trevor I. Smith, Warren M. Christensen, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson
Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship
We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the second law of thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduate thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students in these courses do not clearly articulate the connection between the Carnot cycle and the second law after lecture instruction. This result is consistent both within and across student populations. Observation data provide evidence for myriad difficulties related to entropy and heat engines, including students’ struggles in reasoning about situations that are physically impossible …
Exact Results In Model Statistical Systems, Peter H. Kleban
Exact Results In Model Statistical Systems, Peter H. Kleban
University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports
Intellectual merit: This project focuses on continued research on the exact study of the statistical mechanics of model systems. The research concentrates on two areas:
1) critical percolation in two dimensions, an important and very extensively studied model system, to which we are bringing new and unexpected approaches, and
2) the thermodynamics of the Farey fraction spin chain, a set of one dimensional models with interesting phase transition behavior and connections to multifractals, and dynamical systems.
This project aims at new results and insights in both these areas. Research on the Farey models illuminates an interesting borderline case in the …