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How do we translate our physical sensations of hot and cold into measurable and useful concepts? When systems are brought into contact and exchange energy or volume or particles, what determines the condition of equilibrium? What guides us in obtaining the most useful work possible from heating of substances? How can we make things cooler than their surroundings? How do we quantify the advantages and penalties that occur when useful thermodynamic devices like engines and refrigerators are driven further from equilibrium? How do we purify materials? How is it possible to liquify gases, even helium? How do we bring out convincing evidence that macroscopic behavior is ultimately explained as a statistical consequence of the aggregation of extremely large (10^22) numbers of particles. How is the fundamental quantum-mechanical distinction between bosons and fermions manifest at the macroscopic scale? Can we actually use statistical fluctuations? How do such fluctuations set limits to our ability to detect signals or to create organized structures at the molecular scale? Is there in fact a deep connection between the information embedded in organized systems - either computer memory or DNA - and statistical characteristics of the universe?
Image source: Zephyris at the English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
Currently Offered Experiments
Currently Offered Experiments
Experiments in Development
Experiments in Development
Preparatory Experiments
Preparatory Experiments
Equipment used in thermal and statistical physics experiments
Equipment used in thermal and statistical physics experiments
Temperature measurement instruments
Pressure measurement instruments
Mass measurement instruments
Sample cells
Sample input/removal ports
Electronic feedthroughs
Optical windows
Containment vessels
Vacuum
High pressure
Vacuum systems
Vortex tubes
Heat engines
Stirling engine
Steam engine
Gas liquefiers
Cryogenic equipment
LN2 storage and transfer
Helium storage and transfer
Closed-cycle low temperature refrigerator
Dewards and cryostats
Gas storage
Gas handling equipment
Radiative heat sources
Black body radiation sources
Heaters, hotplates, ovens, furnaces
Refrigerators
General lab ware (beakers, flasks, etc.)
Spanning 7
Spanning 7
An experiment repertoire that spans the field.
An experiment repertoire that spans the field.
.S01 Temperature control of a sample stage
.S02 Equation of state and critical point of real gases
.S03 Stirling cycle as an engine and refrigerator
.S04 Differential scanning calorimetry of liquid crystal phase transitions
.S05 Entropic forces, Brownian motion, and particle segregation
.S06 Dynamic light scattering from particles and fluctuations
.S07 Noise and noise thermometry
Physics we might explore
Physics we might explore
Temperature and thermometry
Temperature control
Gas equations of state
Ideal
van der Waals
Viral
Work-to-thermal-energy conversion
Calorimetry
Bulk calorimetry
Differential Scanning Calorimeter
Entropy-driven processes
Particle segregation experiment
Osmotic pressure
Forward and reverse osmosis
Thermodynamic potentials
Phase equilibrium
Effusion
Joule-Thompson effect
Gas liquifaction
Heat capacities of gases
Monoatomic vs diatomic
Ratio of specific heats
Heat engines
Hot air with isochors
Stirling
Steam cycle
Adiabatic demagnetization
Refrigerators
Heat pumps
Vortex tube cooler/heaters
Thermoacoustic effect
Rijke tube
Acoustic refrigerator
Thermodynamics of rubber: the Gough effect
Critical phenomena
Gas-liquid critical point
Binary fluid mixture
Magnetic phase transitions
Critical exponents
Randomness and distributions
Bean machine and central limit theorem
Stochastic resonance
Fluctuations
Critical opalescence
Noise thermometry
Mass diffusion
Dissiepation and the Einstein relation
Heat transfer
Thermal conduction / diffusion
1D, 2D, 3D heat flow patterns
Transient heat conduction
Photothermal investigations
Convection
Radiation
Heat pipes
Black body radiation
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and self-organization
(see also 16 Complex Systems and Networks)
Kinetics - experiments inspired by the Boltzmann equation
Molecular dynamics inspired experiments
General resources
General resources
American Physical Society organizational units
PIRA bibliography
Physicslabrefs bibliography
ALPhA immersions
Five Modern Physics Experiments (black body radiation)
Labs at other universities and colleges
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