Thermo/stat mech

  • This has become our largest and most active forum because the physics GRE is just one aspect of getting accepted into a graduate physics program.
  • There are applications, personal statements, letters of recommendation, visiting schools, anxiety of waiting for acceptances, deciding between schools, finding out where others are going, etc.

Post Reply
noospace
Posts: 46
Joined: Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:14 pm

Thermo/stat mech

Post by noospace » Mon Dec 01, 2008 7:00 am

I'm in the middle of reviewing these topics (probably my weakest point) for Oct 09.

What exactly is ETS looking for apart from Haliday/Resnick/Walker content? Definitely partition functions and entropy from what I can gather.

Does ETS tend to examine knowledge of state functions (e.g., enthalpy of formation), thermodynamic identity, phase transitions (e.g., law of mass action), FD/Bose-Einstein distributions...?

What is an appropriate textbook for the thermo/stat mech aspect of the GRE? I'm currently studying out of Greiner (Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics) but I think a lot of it may be irrelevant.

Thanks.

abeboparebop
Posts: 112
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:26 am

Re: Thermo/stat mech

Post by abeboparebop » Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:05 pm

noospace wrote:I'm in the middle of reviewing these topics (probably my weakest point) for Oct 09.

What exactly is ETS looking for apart from Haliday/Resnick/Walker content? Definitely partition functions and entropy from what I can gather.

Does ETS tend to examine knowledge of state functions (e.g., enthalpy of formation), thermodynamic identity, phase transitions (e.g., law of mass action), FD/Bose-Einstein distributions...?

What is an appropriate textbook for the thermo/stat mech aspect of the GRE? I'm currently studying out of Greiner (Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics) but I think a lot of it may be irrelevant.

Thanks.
They might want you to know a few thermodynamic identities -- probably none of the other things you've listed. I could possibly imagine the FD/Bose-Einstein coming up as a special topics type question where you simply have to know the general behavior in the low temperature limit.

Basically everything you need to know for thermo is contained in this table on Wikipedia.

Stat mech will pretty much just be partition functions, expectation values, etc.

The best answer to this question is to look through the old tests online, as they contain the level of understanding you'll be expected to display.



Post Reply