We have fourty students in class (N =40).

Each student fall asleep/wake up independently

with the probability of being asleep = Psleep .
(a) What is the total number of states the lecture hall can take?
(b) What is the degeneracy of the state ”n students are sleeping”? What is the probability
of each individual state?
(c) What is the ensemble average of number of students asleep?

Solution.
(a) 2N .
(b) CNn = N!
n!(N −n)!
n
. Pn = Psleep (1 − Psleep )N −n .
PN
n̄sleep = 2i=0 nsleep Pi = N
PN
N! N! n
− Psleep )N −n =
P
(c) i n=0 n!(N −n)! nPn = n=0 n!(N −n)! nPsleep (1
N Psleep

Consider a crystal with 2N lattice sites. (N is very large). The number of A atoms in
N, and the number of B atoms is also N.

What is the value of the configurational entropy for crystal:

A) (perfectly ordered compound AB)

S=0

B) (defected compound with one B atom on the A sublattice)

S = kblnN
C) (defected compound with one AB pair on a swapped sublattice)

S = kbln4N

D) An ordered AB compound with 1% of the A atoms replaced by B atoms.

(B)
N N!
=(
(N − B)!B! )
Ω=

= NlnN − N − (N − B)ln(N − B) + N − B − BlnB + B

= lnN − (1 − f )ln(N − B) − f lnB + f lnN − f lnN
= − (1 − f )ln(1 − f ) − f lnf

S = − kb N[0.01ln0.01 + 0.99ln0.99]
Consider a system containing N particles at constant V and T. The micro states
available to this system are shown diagrammatically below ad they have energies (ε,
ε, and 2ε).

a) What is the degeneracy of E=ε? 2ε?

Ω(ϵ) = 2 Ω(2ϵ) = 1

b) Write both versions of the partition function for this system and simplify completely.

e −βEstate = 2e −βϵ + e −2βϵ

∑
Q=
states

c) What is the probability of the system occupying microstate 1? 2? 3

e −βϵ e −βϵ e −2βϵ

P1 = P2 = P3 =
Q Q Q
 A system with constant volume V and temperature T contains two non-interacting par-
ticles. The solutions to the single particle Schrodinger equation indicate that there are two
single particle quantum states 1 and 2 with energy 1 and 2 respectively.
(a) Assume that the two particles in the system are distinguishable. How many mi-
crostates are available to the system. Write down the energy for each distinct microstate.
(b) Write an expression for the average energy of the system as a funtion of T .

Solution.
(a) Four states. 21 , 1 + 2 , 2 + 1 , 22
(b) We know the partition function is

Q = q N = (e−β1 + e−β2 )2

∂Q 1 e−β1 + 2 e−β2
Ē = kT 2 = 2 −β1
∂T e + e−β2