Thermal Physics , PHY 309

Assignment-1

1. (a) What is the mass of 3 mole of CO2 ? 1 mole of oxygen atoms has a mass of 16 g.
(b) Find the number of C 12 in atoms 1 kg carbon sample( assuming no isotopes present
in the sample.)

2. A system contains n atoms, each of which can only have zero or one quanta of energy.
How many ways can you arrange r quanta of energy when (a)n = 2, r = 1; (b) n = 20,
r = 10; (c) n = 2 × 1023 , r = 1023 ?

3. Estimate the order of magnitude of 1023 !.

4. Find the fractional error in evaluating the followings, using Stirlings approximation (in
the form ln N ! ≈ N ln N N ). (a) ln 10!, (b) ln 100! and (c) ln 1000!.

5. Using the relation ln n ≈ n ln n − n + 12 ln 2πn prove,

n −n
√
(a)n! ≈ n
√ e 2πn,
n+ 12 −n
(b)n! ≈ 2πn e .

6. For a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, calculate the mean speed 〈v〉 and the mean inverse
speed 〈 v1 〉 and show that 〈v〉〈 v1 〉 = π4 .

7. A system comprises of N states which can energy 0 to ∆. Find the total number of
ways Ω(E) of arranging the total system to have energy r∆ (where r is an integer).
Now remove a small amount of energy s∆ from the system, where s << r. Show that
s
Ω(E − 󰂃) ≈ Ω(E) (N r−r)s .

8. Estimate kB T at room temperature and convert this into eV (electron volt). Using this
answer the following,
(a) Would you expect hydrogen atom to be ionized at room temperature.
(b) Would you expect the rotational energy levels of diatomic molecules to be excited at
room temperature. (It costs about 10−4 eV).

9. Show that the following probability distributions are well behaved distributions by check-
ing the normalisation condition. Also evaluate the normalisation constant for the contin-
uous case. Evaluate the mean , standard deviaton and variance of these distributions.
−m x
(a) (Discrete) Poisson Distribution: P (x) = e x!m , where x=0, 1, 2...
x
(b) (Continuous) Exponential Distribution: P (x) = Ae− λ , where x ≥ 0 .

10. Using the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution for a gas, show that,

2πN
(a) n(E)dE = V (πK T )3/2
E 1/2 e(−E/KB T ) dE
B
3 N KB T
. (b) 〈E〉 = 2 V
.