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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
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 …
Identifying Student Difficulties With Entropy, Heat Engines, And The Carnot Cycle, Trevor I. Smith, Warren M. Christensen, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson
Identifying Student Difficulties With Entropy, Heat Engines, And The Carnot Cycle, Trevor I. Smith, Warren M. Christensen, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson
Faculty Scholarship for the College of Science & Mathematics
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 …
Investigation Of The Thermodynamic Properties Of The Oligomerization Domain Of Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein C, John P. O'Brien Iii
Investigation Of The Thermodynamic Properties Of The Oligomerization Domain Of Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein C, John P. O'Brien Iii
Honors Theses
The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein C (hnRNP C) performs a critical role in the processing of nascent pre-messenger ribonucleic acid (pre-mRNA) transcripts as they exit DNA polymerase II. As the pre-mRNA transcripts emerge from the polymerase complex, they are bound by hnRNP C only if its nucleotide (NT) chain is longer than a certain nucleotide length. If the chain is long enough and binding occurs, the nucleotide strand is exported and processed as mRNA, whereas if the length requirement is not met, the RNA sequence is directed along a pathway to become small nuclear RNA (snRNA). The functional form of hnRNP …
Lectures On Thermodynamics And Statistical Mechanics, V P. Nair
Lectures On Thermodynamics And Statistical Mechanics, V P. Nair
Open Educational Resources
No abstract provided.
Symmetry And The Order Of Events In Time: The Thermodynamics Of Blackbodies Composed Of Positive Or Negative Masssymmetry And The Order Of Events In Time: The Thermodynamics Of Blackbodies Composed Of Positive Or Negative Mass, Randy Wayne
Turkish Journal of Physics
I have previously proposed a discrete symmetry called CPM (charge-parity-mass) symmetry that defines matter as having positive mass and antimatter as having negative mass-both being involved in processes that proceed forward in time. I have generalized the second law of thermodynamics to describe and predict the order of events in time that take place in reversible thermodynamic systems composed of positive or negative mass. Here I extend the CPM symmetry to irreversible thermo-optical radiation systems characterized by the Stefan-Boltzmann law, Planck's blackbody radiation law, and Einstein's law of specific heat. The laws of radiation analyzed in terms of CPM symmetry …