ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to build on our understanding of distribution to consider the distributions of energy in various thermodynamics systems and thereby introduce the concept of partition functions, which in general terms are reflections of how the energy is partitioned across the components of a system. The partition functions are a key link between the molecular nature of materials and the thermodynamic properties of these materials. They therefore link the world of Statistical Mechanics with the world of Thermodynamics.
