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Physics 416: WarmUp Exercises

...Entropy

This assignment is due before 10 AM, Wednesday, February 2nd, 2000.

Please type LAST name:

Please type your LAST NAME and LAST FOUR SS# digits (eg: Smith3256):

I received no help from anyone on this assignment.

The following questions refer to the material you were to read in preparation to the lesson. Each question requires you to write a paragraph or two in response.

You may change your mind as often as you wish. When you are satisfied with your responses, click the "Submit WarmUp" button at the bottom of this page.




1.


In your travels, you have probably heard that entropy is a measure of "randomness." In §3.3 of the book, Reif defines entropy to be Boltzmann's constant times the natural log of the number of accessible microstates. Please compare your understanding of &randomness" to your understanding of the formal definition.



2.

Consider the number of students and the number of chairs in our class on a typical day. How would you define a microstate for this system? Estimate the number of states and the entropy.





Below is a space for your thoughts, including general comments about today's assignment. What was hard or confusing (or cool)? What would you like to spend extra time on in class? Do you see how this subject fits in with the others we have discussed?




You may change your mind as often as you wish. When you are satisfied with your responses click the SUBMIT button.

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