Elements of statistical thermodynamics

"This book has been designed to show how new powers and new insights, operative in the realm of classical macroscopic thermodynamics, emerge from its affiliation with the microcosmic realm of atoms. To begin, analysis of very simple microcanonical ensembles leads to a derivation of the Boltzmann distribution law. Then, exploitation of this relation is shown to invest the concepts of entropy and equilibrium with new meaning and significance, and the reader comes to see how thermodynamic magnitudes (e.g., gaseous heat capacities and equilibrium constants) can be calculated from spectroscopic data."--Back cover.