Saturday, December 1, 2007

Thermodynamics Marches On

On our last day I wanted to argue that, though thermodynamics has proven to be one of science's greatest achievements, it is far from complete. One area of study, in its infancy and built on the foundations of thermodynamics, is complex systems research. Perhaps in the next few decades a Fourth or Fifth law will be proposed?

Questions about the final and/or course?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

will there be a page dedicated to the definitions/significances of the major topics we covered?

rod said...

The structure of the exam is similar to the other two that you have taken, including the last page.

Anonymous said...

So I was right for the number of water molecules on question 2... I guess my calculator is okay! :D

rod said...

Yes, yes you were :) Sorry for the razzing.

Anonymous said...

is there something wrong with the link on your website for homework 7?

Anonymous said...

Homework 5: Crystallization of sodium acetate from a supersaturated solution occurs spontaneously.
What can you deduce about the signs of ∆S and ∆H? Does the flask get hotter or colder?

Why are delta S and H negative?

rod said...

HW7 is just the Surface and Gibbs Rule questions combined.

About the supersaturation question:

Hopefully it is clear that precipitation lowers the entropy of the solute because the number of accessible states plummets when going from aqueous to solid phases. Therefore ∆S is negative.

Since ∆G=∆H-T∆S and ∆G is negative (this is a spontaneous process), we can determine that ∆H is negative (and therefore exothermic).

Anonymous said...

is it possible to post the answers to the "Droplets, Cavities, Clouds and Capillaries" worksheet please?

rod said...

It has been up for days (under hw7 solutions).

Anonymous said...

Have a good break! See you next quarter!