Summary: Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
Equilibrium by Entropy Maximization
Phil Attard
Corrections to the First Edition (2002), as at 11 Jan., 2010.
Pages 8­10, (and also Appendix A). The discussion of probability and
set theory often implicitly used the same symbol to represent both a specific
macrostate and the entire collective of such macrostates. The presentation
would arguably be clarified by distinguishing these. For example, the label
should be taken to represent a specific macrostate, which comprises all mi-
crostates that have macroscopic value equal to , belonging to the collective
of similar macrostates, (e. g. = 10J, and it belongs to the energy collective).
Macrostates in a given collective must be disjoint, (which means the weight
(, ) = 0 if = and and represent macrostates in the same collective),
but macrostates belonging to different collectives may overlap, (e. g. (, )
may be non-zero if is an energy state in the collective of energy macrostates
and is a volume state in the collective of volume macrostates).
Page 13, following Eq. (1.16): Replace the definition of the average by
f = dx (x)f(x)/W.
Page 72, Eq. (4.58): Replace the right hand side argument (E|N, V, T) by
(E, N|µ, V, T).

Source: Attard, Phil - School of Chemistry, University of Sydney

Collections: Chemistry