Read Part 1: Equilibrium Systems The Ideal Gas: Boltzmann’s Approach (The Microcanonical Ensemble) Consider a monatomic gas of ##N## non-interacting particles with mass ##m## occupying the volume ##V##. Since the particles of the gas do not interact with each other, it is not difficult to explicitly calculate ##\Omega_{E}##. The position of each particle is constrained to…
This is the first of a multi-part series of articles intended to give a concise overview of statistical mechanics and some of its applications. These articles are by no means comprehensive of the entire field but aim to give a clear line of reasoning from Boltzmann’s equation to non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. It is hoped that…
Introduction Some of the most visible features in our sky are solar system objects: the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. These objects are generally much brighter than most deep-sky targets and, in the case of planets, appear relatively small in angular size. Those two facts have encouraged amateur astronomers to develop specialized imaging techniques…