Mzuzu University · Department of Physics and Electronics
PHYS 4703 — Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics
Virtual laboratory
Eleven experiments covering the whole PHYS 4703 syllabus, from the zeroth law to Bose–Einstein and Fermi–Dirac statistics. Each one is a working instrument: you choose the conditions, take readings that carry realistic noise and realistic systematic errors, and analyse the data yourself.
Nothing is pre-computed for you. The apparatus is built from your own bench key, so your instrument has its own zero errors and its own unlabelled specimens, and it is not the same as anyone else’s.
A Stirling engine idling between 640 K and 300 K. Every experiment has a live schematic like this one, wired to your controls.
How the laboratory works
Read the briefing
Each experiment opens with its aims, the theory you need, the apparatus in front of you and the procedure. Read it before you touch a control, exactly as you would in a real laboratory.
Take your readings
Set the conditions and take a reading. Every reading is computed on the server from your bench key, so repeating a measurement gives genuinely new noise, and the accepted answers never reach your browser.
Analyse and report
Plot and fit inside the bench, or export the data as CSV and use your own tools. Then report the quantities you were asked for; the numerical results are checked immediately against tolerances.
The experiment programme
All experiments →- 01The Zeroth Law and the Ideal-Gas Temperature ScaleEstablish a thermodynamic temperature scale with a constant-volume gas thermometer.
- 02The First Law: Work, Heat and the Ratio of Heat CapacitiesIsothermal and adiabatic changes in an ideal gas, and three determinations of gamma.
- 03Calorimetry: Heat Capacity, Latent Heat and Entropy ChangeThe method of mixtures, with a proper cooling correction, and the entropy generated by irreversible heat flow.
- 04The Second Law: Heat Engines, the Carnot Cycle and EfficiencyIndicator diagrams, the Carnot limit, and why a real engine is most powerful well below it.
- 05Entropy, Irreversibility and the Principle of Increasing EntropyFree expansion, reversible expansion, mixing and the degradation of work.
- 06Thermodynamic Potentials, the Gibbs Function and the Clausius-Clapeyron EquationVapour pressure, latent heat, Trouton's rule and why ice melts under pressure.
- 07The Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution of Molecular SpeedsA rotating-drum beam experiment, a velocity selector, and Boltzmann's H-theorem.
- 08Heat Capacity of Solids: the Einstein and Debye Theories, and the Third LawFrom the Dulong-Petit limit to the T-cubed law, and the entropy that vanishes at absolute zero.
- 09Blackbody Radiation and Bose-Einstein StatisticsPlanck's law, Wien's displacement law, the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and h and k from a single spectrum.
- 10Fermi-Dirac Statistics: Thermionic Emission from a MetalThe Richardson-Dushman law, the work function, and the space-charge limit.
- 11Joule-Thomson Expansion and the Maxwell RelationsThrottling, inversion temperatures, and a direct test of a Maxwell relation.