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Midterm Exam 1 PDF

This document is the midterm exam for Physics 4230 in Fall 2010. It consists of 4 multi-part problems related to thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and magnetism. Students have 50 minutes to complete the exam, showing their reasoning and calculations clearly. The first problem involves calculating changes in energy, work, and heat for an ideal gas undergoing a cyclic process. The second problem deals with distinguishing and counting parking arrangements for cars. The third considers entropy changes when blocks of copper at different temperatures exchange energy. The fourth concerns a paramagnet and derives formulas for its entropy and energy as a function of other variables.

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233 views2 pages

Midterm Exam 1 PDF

This document is the midterm exam for Physics 4230 in Fall 2010. It consists of 4 multi-part problems related to thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and magnetism. Students have 50 minutes to complete the exam, showing their reasoning and calculations clearly. The first problem involves calculating changes in energy, work, and heat for an ideal gas undergoing a cyclic process. The second problem deals with distinguishing and counting parking arrangements for cars. The third considers entropy changes when blocks of copper at different temperatures exchange energy. The fourth concerns a paramagnet and derives formulas for its entropy and energy as a function of other variables.

Uploaded by

milepn
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Physics 4230, Fall 2010, Midterm exam 1

You have 50 minutes to finish the exam. Explain your reasoning clearly and concisely for full credit.

Figure 1: Quasi-static cyclic process of an ideal gas for Problem 1. 1. An ideal gas undergoes the quasi-static cyclic thermodynamic process shown in the P-V plane in Figure 1. The process begins and ends at point 1, and proceeds in the direction shown by the arrows. The dashed line is the T = T0 isotherm, so step A of this process corresponds to isothermal expansion. (a) [5 pts] Is the net change in energy !U for this process positive, negative, or zero? Why? (b) [5 pts] Is the total work !W done on the gas during this process positive, negative, or zero? Why? (c) [5 pts] Is the total heat !Q added to the gas during this process positive, negative, or zero? Why? (d) [15 pts] Assume the gas is diatomic. Calculate !U, !W, and !Q for step A. Repeat the calculation for steps B and C. Are the results consistent with your answers to parts (a)-(c)? 2. 12 cars share 12 parking spots in the parking lot east of Duane Physics: 5 indistinguishable Subaru Outbacks, 4 indistinguishable Toyota Priuses, and 3 indistinguishable Audi A4s. (a) [10 pts] How many distinct parking arrangements are there? Give a number, not just a formula. Hint: first calculate the number of ways of distributing 5 Subarus among 12 parking spots, then calculate the number of ways of distributing 4 Toyotas among the remaining 7 parking spots. (b) [5 pts] How many distinct parking arrangements would there be if the Audis had vanity plates that made them distinguishable?

3. A 10 g block of copper at 350 K is placed in thermal contact with a 20 g block of copper at 290 K. (a) [10 pts] What is the change in the total entropy of the two blocks of copper due to a transfer of 0.1 J of energy from the hotter block to the colder block, immediately after thermal contact is established? Assume that the temperatures of the two blocks dont change during this transfer. (b) [5 pts] By what factor does the number of accessible states (multiplicity) of the system change during this transfer? (This should be written as the exponential of a large number.) Is this a reversible process? 4. Consider a two-state paramagnet consisting of N spins in a magnetic field, which has energy U = BM, where is the spin magnetic moment, B is the magnetic field, M = N! N" is the magnetization, and N! and N" are the numbers of up and down spins, respectively (N = N! + N"). (a) [3 pts] How many possible macrostates are there? (b) [3 pts] What is the total number of possible microstates? (c) [4 pts] What is the multiplicity "(N,M) (number of microstates for a given M)? (d) [20 pts] Derive a formula for the entropy S(N,M) for large N and for M << N (high-temperature limit). Make use of Stirlings approximation and the expansion ln(1+x) = x x2/2, valid for |x| << 1. (e) [10 pts] Express the entropy in terms of U, and use the statistical definition of temperature to derive a formula for U as a function of T.

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