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Thermal Physics: Entropy and Free Energies
Thermal Physics Entropy and Free Energies Author:Joon Chang Lee This book is an informal, readable introduction to the basic ideas of thermal physics. It is aimed at making the reader feel comfortable with the extremum principles of entropy and free energies. There is a repeating theme: Molecules (spins) do X to maximize their entropy, and molecules (spins) do XX to minimize their free energy. This finally l... more »eads to the idea of the Landau-Ginzburg free energy functional. The author illustrates how powerful the idea is by using two examples from phase transitions. Contents: Introduction to Thermal Physics; All You Need to Know to Read the Rest; Isolated Thermal Systems; Systems in Contact with a Thermal Reservoir; Open Systems, Flexible Systems, and Two More Energy-like Functions; Energy versus Free Energy; Phases and Phase Transitions; Second-Order Phase Transitions; Landau-Ginzburg Free Energy Functional and Applications; Monte Carlo and Finite-Size Scaling.« less