Concept
Thermal physics
Overview
Thermal physics is the combined study of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and kinetic theory of gases. This umbrella-subject is typically designed for physics students and functions to provide a general introduction to each of three core heat-related subjects. Other authors, however, define thermal physics loosely as a summation of only thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.
Thermal physics can be seen as the study of systems with a large number of atoms. It unites thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The kinetical theory of gases is a good example of this. This theory is intended to explain certain simple formulæ, the chief of which is called the law of Boyle.
Charles S. Peirce, Chance, Love, and Logic
States what Thermal physics is.
But what about the mechanical theory of heat and of latent heat which is a "stumbling block" in the path of the theory? If one convert a pound of ice at freezing point under normal atmospheric pressure into a pound of water of the same temperature by means of heat there vanishes a quantity of heat which could heat the same pound of…
Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism
States what Thermal physics is.
The study of gases was originally quite distinct from that of rigid bodies, and would never have advanced to its present state if it had not been independently pursued. Nowadays both the gas and the rigid body are manufactured out of a more primitive and universal kind of matter. In like manner, as a question of methodology, the laws of living bodies are to be studied, in the first place, without any undue haste to…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
Close in meaning to Thermal physics; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- Second law of thermodynamics
- Quantum
- Quantum mechanics
- Statistical mechanics
- Thermodynamics
- Kinetic theory of gases
- Entropy
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of physics.