ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 dealt with the defi nitions of many of the quantities required for the
macroscopic description of the thermodynamic behavior of systems viewed
as continua, including the defi nition of a system. However, we are familiar
with the notion that all matter is made up of atomic or molecular entities, and
it is the purpose of statistical mechanics to provide a microscopic descrip-
tion of the behavior of a thermodynamic system in terms of the properties,
interactions, and motions of the atoms or molecules that make up the system.
Because macroscopic thermodynamic systems contain very large numbers of
molecules, the task of statistical mechanics is not to describe exactly what hap-
pens to every single molecule, but rather to derive results that pertain to the
