Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2005 Paper 2 7 b Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
At fixed entropy, the total differential in coordinates is . Dividing by along that path gives . The same argument in coordinates gives . These are the two required intermediate identities.
To prove the final result without cancelling a possibly vanishing thermal-expansion derivative, write , , , . In a regular thermodynamic region with , fixed pressure gives , while fixed entropy gives . The chain rule then gives and . Both cross-products equal , provingThe heat-capacity and compressibility ratio identity rewrites this as : keeping entropy fixed rather than temperature fixed changes the mechanical stiffness by the same factor as the two thermal responses.