(registered under sec. xxi of societies act 1860, reg. no ... goa rc workshop report.pdf · he said...

Report of the Statistical Mechanics Workshop held on 22nd and 23rd March 2013

The IAPT Goa Regional Council organized a 2-day workshop for Physics Teachers of colleges in Goa, on Saturday

22nd and 23rd March 2013 at Birla Institute of Tech. & Science – Pilani, K.K.Birla Goa Campus., Zuarinagar, Goa –

403726. 11 teachers and 5 research students attended the program. Seven resource persons (Physics faculty from

BITS) also participated in the program. A Textbook titled ‘Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory and Statistical

Thermodynamics’ by ‘Sears and Salinger’ was given to the participants free of cost along with workshop material.

There were altogether 24 participants including the resource persons. The program was partially funded by

Department of Science, Technology and Environment, Govt of Goa.

Topics from Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics form a major portion of the Physics Curriculum in the

current undergraduate degree program in Physics and Mechanical Engineering. This subject involves a variety of

theoretical concepts and also the use of advanced mathematics. The workshop aimed to explicitly work out

mathematical details surrounding some of these concepts so that the participants develop greater confidence and

ability to use these concepts and also to teach at the undergraduate level. The eight lectures in the workshop, by

members of the Physics Faculty of BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus, covered a range of topics from

Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory, Classical and Quantum Statistics.

The inaugural programme on Friday 22nd March (9.40am -10.10 am) was presided over by Prof K E Raman,

Director, BITS – Pilani, K.K.Birla Goa Campus. President Prof A V Kulkarni, welcomed the gathering and highlighted

the activities of IAPT, Goa RC. He said that this workshop was the third in a series of such workshops for College

teachers in Goa. Dr. Radhika Vatsan highlighted the details of the workshop. Chief Guest Prof K E Raman lauded

the efforts of the IAPT Goa in bringing focus on a subject such as Statistical Mechanics. The Secretary Prof.

Rajendra delivered the vote of thanks. The inaugural program was compered by Dr. Radhika. Vatsan.

The first lecture was on “Introduction to Thermodynamics” by Prof A V Kulkarni. The talk covered aspects of

concept of temperature, path dependence of heat and work, First and Second law of Thermodynamics. The

second lecture by Prof A V Kulkarni covered the thermodynamic potentials and Maxwell’s Thermodynamical

relations. The third lecture of the workshop by Dr. Gaurav Dar was on “Kinetic Theory and Maxwell’s velocity

distribution. He used the simple assumptions of kinetic theory and derived the Maxwell’s expression for the

distribution of molecular speeds in an ideal gas.

The post lunch session started at 2.30 pm. started with Prof Chandradew Sharma giving an interesting talk on

Phase Transitions and the Claussius- Clapyron equation. This was followed by a tea break, which was followed by

an open discussion with the audience regarding their problems and comments on their experience of teaching

Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics. There was enthusiastic participation and questions on the

interpretation of certain concepts.

Indian Association of Physics Teachers (Registered under Sec. XXI of Societies Act 1860, Reg. No. K-1448)

Goa Regional Council

Email: [email protected]

The program on Saturday 23rd March saw more rigorous treatments of specific topics in Statistical Mechanics

along with calculations. The first lecture of Saturday 23rd March which was also the fifth lecture of the workshop

lecture series was delivered by Dr. Radhika Vathsan. Talking on “Transport Phenomena”, the charge mass, and

momentum transport leading to the calculation of electrical conductivity, diffusion and viscosity were discussed

and the counterintuitive result that viscosity of an ideal gas was independent of pressure was explicitly derived.

Lecture 6 of the workshop was taken by Dr. Madhu Kalingalthode. He gave a clear definition of microstates,

macro-states in a system illustrating the definitions with examples. Using properties such as indistinguishability of

particles and combinatorial arguments, he constricted the thermodynamic probability functions for the Bose and

Fermi systems. Using the principal of maximum entropy he derived an expression for the occupation number

distribution among the discrete energy levels of Bose and Fermi systems.

Prof. Prashanta Das, in his lecture (Lecture No. 7 in the series) discussed the properties of an ensemble of Simple

Harmonic Oscillations in the canonical ensemble and later went on to construct the Einstein Theory of Specific

Heats. The 8th and the final lecture in the workshop was conducted after lunch. It was on Para-magnetism by Dr.

Toby Joseph. He began his lecture with a short video clipping showing the paramagnetic behavior of oxygen. The

video clip showed how liquid oxygen gets trapped in magnetic field which has a gradient. The behavior of the

paramagnetic susceptibility as a function of temperature was discussed and the Curie’s law was derived.

The last lecture was followed by the Valedictory/ feedback session. The participants already had been given a copy

of the feedback form along with the registration material. The participants were enthusiastic about such

workshops and thanked the resource persons for the wonderful lectures.. They wanted more such workshops on

subjects like classical mechanics, atomic & molecular physics, spectroscopy, optics and experimental physics at

school and college levels. They also appreciated the fact that many physical statements in this workshop were

substantiated by rigorous mathematical derivation, which they could follow quite easily. This they claimed gave

them confidence. Most of the participants were motivated by the choice of the topics during the workshop.

President A V Kulkarni announced that the next workshop in the series would be on Solid State Physics at Goa

University and would likely be held sometime in September’2013. The HOD OF Physics, Prof. P. Nandakumar,

announced that BITS- Pilani, Goa Campus would be offering a part-time Ph. D. program for employed professionals

such as Physics Teachers and the Physics Teachers of Goa can avail of this facility. Certificates of participation

were given during the Valedictory session. The session came to an end with tea being served before the

participants dispersed.

Arun V Kulkarni

President, IAPT Goa RC




Inaugural function :Lighting of lamp Inaugural function :Lighting of lamp

Inaugural function :Lighting of lamp Inaugural function: Chief guest (Director K E Raman)

Lecture 1 : Arun Kulkarni Lecture 2 : Arun Kulkarni




Lecture 3 : Gaurav Dhar Audience: General Discussion

Audience: General Discussion Audience: General Discussion

Lecture 4 : Chandradev Sharma Lecture 4 : Chandradev Sharma

Lecture 5: Radhika Vatsan Audience: Discussion on the lecture

Lecture 6: Madhu K Lecture 6: Madhu K


Goa Regional Council Email: [email protected]

Lecture 7: Prashanta Das Lecture 8: Toby Joseph

Audience Announcements by P Nandakumar,

HOD (Physics Department)




(registered under sec. xxi of societies act 1860, reg. no ... goa rc workshop report.pdf · he said...

Documents