Physics 4 — Thermo & Fluids
The ideal gas law, heat & specific heat, Carnot’s limit, pressure with depth, buoyancy, and Bernoulli.
The physics of lots of things at once — molecules too numerous to track, so we measure crowds: pressure, temperature, flow. These are the laws engines, weather, and plumbing obey.
- 01 The ideal gas law P·V = n·R·T ties a gas's pressure, volume, amount and temperature into one rule. A scuba tank: 12 L at 230 atmospheres — how many moles of air?
- 02 Heat & specific heat Heat is energy in transit: Q = m·c·ΔT. Water's c is enormous (4186 J/kg·K) — which is why oceans tame climates and why boiling a liter takes real time:
- 03 Carnot — the law nobody beats No engine converting heat to work can beat η = 1 − T_cold/T_hot (temperatures in kelvin). Not with better materials, not with cleverness — it is bookkeeping on…
- 04 Fluids at rest — pressure & buoyancy Depth is weight: P = ρ·g·h stacks a column of fluid on you. Every 10 m of water adds about one atmosphere:
- 05 Fluids in motion — Bernoulli Energy bookkeeping for flow: where a pipe narrows, fluid speeds up and its pressure drops. Continuity sets the speed; Bernoulli prices it in pressure:
next course: Physics 5 — Modern Physics →