- #1
go_ducks
- 24
- 0
Greetings, I'm a 4th year physics undergrad, hoping to avoid entering a 5th. Using 2nd edition of Callen for Thermo class in upper div. I'm having a real hard time solving any problem in this book. I haven't had nightmares over homeworks since my math methods class which used Arfken. The problem is just ..I don't seem to have the pre-requisite understanding of thermodynamics / statistical physics. Lecture also covers different topics (yes, really.) I am going to post up a couple problems, not really looking for answers but maybe what I should've read up on first before I tried this problem. This is from the 2nd edition of callen. I have a lot of other problems I just think i'd ask about the worst one first.
19.3-6. Consider a small quantity of matter consisting of a fixed number N moles in a large fluid system. Let ρN be the average density of these N moles: the mass divided by the volume. Show that equation 19.17 implies that the density fluctuations are
<(ΔρN)^2> / (ρN)^2 = + kb * T * κt / V
in which V is the average volume of the N moles.
--
ok , i can't seem to understand the sigma symbol, so let me explain
kb is the Boltzmann constant
κt is k-sub-t (subscript), i actually don't know what this is.
ΔρN has a hat ( a ^ symbol) on the ρ
ρN is ρ-sub-N (subscript)
eq 19.17 is:
<(ΔV-hat)^2> = -kb T (dv/dp)t,N1,... = kB T V κT
I met up with 4 other students and we tried to make sense of it. It doesn't . Read the Callen chapter which is bewildering. Other than ch 19, we went over ch 1-7. I tried reading the other chapters before it. Went home trying to work on it. Tried to just replace ρ with M/V throughout the problem, hoping it would be a plug-and-chug answer. Tried to reverse engineer the goal-equation to see what needs doing (it seems like multiply both sides by M/V^3... can't recall off-hand.. it was something that made no sense. After that I began reading about fluctuations and stat mech online... also didnt help. Basically after that I started trying to just look the answer up somewhere, and that wasnt fruitful. I have..an empty sheet, because I don't even know where to start. I considered maybe attacking the (dv/dp) term in 19.17 since we have been doing manipulations like that up until now, but I am not very sure of what I am doing with that anyway.So..I'm sure someone knows how to nail this problem. Can I be provided with some maybe useful links and advise on how to solve it? I mean, I feel like I just don't have the tools. Maybe there is a concept of thermodynamics I missed badly along the way somewhere. I love my professor but wow this problem has made me suffer.
Homework Statement
19.3-6. Consider a small quantity of matter consisting of a fixed number N moles in a large fluid system. Let ρN be the average density of these N moles: the mass divided by the volume. Show that equation 19.17 implies that the density fluctuations are
<(ΔρN)^2> / (ρN)^2 = + kb * T * κt / V
in which V is the average volume of the N moles.
--
ok , i can't seem to understand the sigma symbol, so let me explain
kb is the Boltzmann constant
κt is k-sub-t (subscript), i actually don't know what this is.
ΔρN has a hat ( a ^ symbol) on the ρ
ρN is ρ-sub-N (subscript)
Homework Equations
eq 19.17 is:
<(ΔV-hat)^2> = -kb T (dv/dp)t,N1,... = kB T V κT
The Attempt at a Solution
I met up with 4 other students and we tried to make sense of it. It doesn't . Read the Callen chapter which is bewildering. Other than ch 19, we went over ch 1-7. I tried reading the other chapters before it. Went home trying to work on it. Tried to just replace ρ with M/V throughout the problem, hoping it would be a plug-and-chug answer. Tried to reverse engineer the goal-equation to see what needs doing (it seems like multiply both sides by M/V^3... can't recall off-hand.. it was something that made no sense. After that I began reading about fluctuations and stat mech online... also didnt help. Basically after that I started trying to just look the answer up somewhere, and that wasnt fruitful. I have..an empty sheet, because I don't even know where to start. I considered maybe attacking the (dv/dp) term in 19.17 since we have been doing manipulations like that up until now, but I am not very sure of what I am doing with that anyway.So..I'm sure someone knows how to nail this problem. Can I be provided with some maybe useful links and advise on how to solve it? I mean, I feel like I just don't have the tools. Maybe there is a concept of thermodynamics I missed badly along the way somewhere. I love my professor but wow this problem has made me suffer.
Last edited: