Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Thermal physics revisited

Rajaram Nityananda

Azim Premji University, Bengaluru

Thermodynamics and statistical physics are a vital part of the standard physics curriculum at any level. These are mature and well developed areas, with many standard texts (not all of which agree, though). The renewed interest in fluctuations, in small, open, and driven systems, and the use of Shannon information are all mid to late twentieth century developments which we should be considering for a twenty-first century thermal physics curriculum.