Thermodynamics is one of the most advanced tools for understanding our physical universe.
The macroscopic and microscopic formulations of the subject can be applied to thermal devices (turbines and heat engines), information technology (maximum information from an antenna) , biological systems (genetic regulatory networks), and planetary equilibria (greenhouse gases and climate change).
MECH 501 (Advanced Thermodynamics) reviews the fundamentals of classical thermodynamics, which embodies the macroscopic formulation of the subject. This includes the fundamental postulates, the applications of Maxwell's relations, and the concepts of exergy and equilibrium.
The course then examines the microscopic description (using the principles of Statistical Mechanics) and derives the fundamental relations in the entropy representation. The Maxwell-Boltzmann, Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics are used to explain material properties (e.g., the heat capacity of solids and diatomic gases, the emission spectrum from black bodies, and the lambda transition in liquid helium).