Controlling the Size of Popcorn

We present a thermo-statistical model of popcorn production and propose a way to control the final size of the popcorn by monitoring only the chamber pressure.Comment: 6 pages; revision (typo and minor content corrections

Density Functional Theory of Hard Sphere Condensation Under Gravity

The onset of condensation of hard spheres in a gravitational field is studied using density functional theory. In particular, we find that the local density approximation yields results identical to those obtained previously using the kinetic theory [Physica A 271, 192, (1999)], and a weighted density functional theory gives qualitatively similar results, namely, that the temperature at which condensation begins at the bottom scales linearly with weight, diameter, and number of layers of particles.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Increasing the Size of a Piece of Popcorn

Popcorn is an extremely popular snack food in the world today. Thermodynamics can be used to analyze how popcorn is produced. By treating the popping mechanism of the corn as a thermodynamic expansion, a method of increasing the volume or size of a kernel of popcorn can be studied. By lowering the pressure surrounding the unpopped kernel, one can use a thermodynamic argument to show that the expanded volume of the kernel when it pops must increase. In this project, a variety of experiments are run to test the validity of this theory. The results show that there is a significant increase in the average kernel size when the pressure of the surroundings is reduced.Comment: Latex document, 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 page of table

Measurement of Isothermal Pressure of Lattice Gas by Random Walk

We present a computational random walk method of measuring the isothermal pressure of the lattice gas with and without the excluded volume interaction. The method is based on the discretization of the exact thermodynamic relation for the pressure. The simulation results are in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions.Comment: 10 Pages, 2 Figures, Teaching Material. To Appear in Physica

Condensation of Hard Spheres Under Gravity

Starting from Enskog equation of hard spheres of mass m and diameter D under the gravity g, we first derive the exact equation of motion for the equilibrium density profile at a temperature T and examine its solutions via the gradient expansion. The solutions exist only when \beta\mu \le \mu_o \approx 21.756 in 2 dimensions and \mu_o\approx 15.299 in 3 dimensions, where \mu is the dimensionless initial layer thickness and \beta=mgD/T. When this inequality breaks down, a fraction of particles condense from the bottom up to the Fermi surface.Comment: 9 pages, one figur