Thermal Physics 2013 Fall

Yih-Yuh Chen
Assignment 1
The due date for this assignment is Tuesday, October 22, 2013.
1. (Estimating and of a van der Waals gas.) The van der Waals equation can be
written as

+
1
=

(a) Explain why is expected to roughly play the role of , the attractive intermolecular energy per particle. Here, is Avogadros number.
(b) Writing , where is the average free volume per particle, we thus have

Suppose we are dealing with polar molecules such as HCl, which have a permanent
dipole moment , then please explain why

13

where

1 2

40 3

is the mean distance between two molecules.

(c) Part (b) implies that we may estimate via

2 2

40

With and being the electronic charge and the Bohrs radius, respectively,
Please use to estimate .

(d) Check your estimate with the values you find for several real gases.
(e) Gives an estimate of the parameter .
2. Carter Problem 1-4.
3. Carter Problem 1-7.
4. Carter Problem 1-8.
5. Carter Problem 2-4.
6. Carter Problem 26.