Question

What is the difference between the classical and the statistical approaches to thermodynamics?

Answer 1

Explanation:

Classical Thermodynamics studies the relationships between the State functions of the system: i.e. Pressure, Temperature, Volume, Energy, Entropy etc. In classical thermodynamics we pretend that we don’t know anything about the microscopic constituents (atoms) of our thermodynamic system. We do not talk about concepts like microstates, or ensemble averages, since such concepts require a more fine-grained perspective of the universe.

Statistical Thermodynamics explores how particular microscopic elements of the structures can be statistically related to the functions of the state. Depending on the limit in which we are, these microscopic elements can be either classically or mechanically quantified. In the end, nearly all statistical thermodynamics are derived by summing up the microscopic properties to derive equations for the functions of the macroscopic state.

Answer 2

Answer:

Explanation:

Classical Thermodynamics deals with the properties of system at macroscopic level. Here we are not concerned about the micro-particles and any property related to at the micro-level of the system. We are curious about various state functions of the system like pressure, temperature, entropy, energy etc.

In statistical approach we treat each particle or the molecule of the system as an individual entity and try to find its thermodynamic property and for finding the property of the whole bulk we calculate the average or sum of all the individual results.