Simulating and understanding phase change | Guest video by Vilas Winstein

This video, the first in a two-part series, explores phase transitions using a discretized fluid model called the liquid vapor model. It introduces the Boltzmann formula to explain the simulation's mechanics, detailing how temperature and chemical potential influence molecular behavior. The video elucidates phase transitions as discontinuities in equilibrium behavior, contrasting them with chemical reactions, and explains how the Boltzmann distribution dictates the probability of microstates based on energy and temperature. It further explains how the simulation works by making small random changes that eventually lead to a proper sample from the Boltzmann distribution. The discussion extends to the competition between energy and entropy, the concept of chemical potential, and the principle of universality, relating the model to real-world phenomena like the behavior of H2O and other models like the Ising and XY models.