Reading Response, Week 12 Reading Response - Week 12 Reading Response - Week 12 Last Name, First Name * email * 1: In a solution, the primary component is the solvent, and the other secondary components are the solutes. Consider a simple solution, where A is the solvent and B is the solute. Eqs. (5.69) and (5.70) give the chemical potentials for the solvent and the solute, respectively. What happens to the chemical potential of the solvent A as more solute B is added? 2: What is a semi-permeable membrane? What is osmosis? 3: Discuss osmosis in terms of chemical potentials. Discuss osmosis at the molecular level. 4: Raoult's law (eq. 5.86) tells us that the vapor pressure of a solution is reduced from the vapor pressure of the pure solvent by a fraction equal to the ratio of the solute molecules to the solvent molecules. The text derives this by looking at chemical potentials. Explain why this reduction in vapor pressure occurs from a molecular level point of view. 5: What does it mean for an energy level to be degenerate? What is the degeneracy of the ground state of hydrogen? What is the degeneracy of the second excited state of hydrogen? 6: Eq. (6.3) has a P dV term and a μ dN term, both of which will be thrown away in the derivation that results in eq. (6.5). Why is each term neglected? 7: According to the book, what is the "most useful formula in all of statistical mechanics"? What does this formula let you determine? 8: For every trillion atoms in the ground state in a star at T = 5800 K, about how many are in the second excited state? 9: What's β (beta)? 10: Consider the situation shown in Figure 6.5, but take one of the atoms with no energy and give it 4 eV of energy. What is the total energy of the system then? What is the average energy of the system? 11: Describe in your own words what is going on in eq. (6.17). 12: What's going on in eq. (6.25)? When might you use eq. (6.25) instead of eq. (6.17)? What material from this reading (or previous classes) would you like us to go over in more detail? Submit Δ
