PHYSICS 112 SPRING 2016

Homework assignment #3
Due: Tuesday, April 19

From Reif Chapter 2: 2.11

From Reif Chapter 3: 3.1, 3.2
A. Consider helium to be an ideal gas that fills a container at a pressure of 1
atmosphere, and at a temperature of 20 o C. Can its behavior be described
classically? Why?
B. Construct a table and schematic cataloguing the possible configurations for two
particles having spin 1. Each has a magnetic moment and is placed in an
external magnetic field H. Indicate which configurations have the same
a-priori probability.
C. Consider an ensemble of point masses bouncing elastically from the surface of the
earth with energy E.
i)
ii)
iii)

What is the Hamiltonian for an individual particle ?

What is the phase-space trajectory of an individual particle?
Calculate the probability of finding a particle within an interval dy at
height y above the earth.