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Re: Entropy (English, this time)



Jim,

I don't think it's easy in general to show delta -S = k delta ln W
is equivalent to delta S = delta Q/T,

But there is a nice exercise with a group of N equivalent harmonic
oscillators sharing n energy units where both ideas are brought
together. W is fairly easy to to work out in this case. Changes in n
can be interpreted as changes in U. A value of T can be obtained
from the statitical model, and also Cv.


I got this idea from talk given Dan Schroeder. You can find a
spreadsheet version and a maple version underneath my home page
(below) . Go to New Packets Project, then go to thermo/stat mech,
then go to Maple/Mma page and to the problem called 'match'. There's
a fair amount of discussion and the maple source code, too.

--

Mike

--
Mike Moloney
moloney@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu
Dept of Physics & Applied Optics (812) 877 8302
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Terre Haute, IN 47803
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~moloney/index.html