The partition function provides a link between the microscopic properties of atoms and molecules (eg. size, shape and characteristic energy levels) and the bulk thermodynamic properties of matter. In order to understand the partition function, how it can be derived, and why it works, it is important to recognize that these bulk thermodynamic properties reflect the average behavior of the atoms and molecules. For example, the pressure of a gas is really just the average force per unit area exerted by its particles as they collide with the container walls. It doesn't matter which particular particles strike the wall at any given time or even the force with which a given particle strikes the wall. In addition it is not necessary to consider the fluctuations in pressure as different numbers of particles hit the walls, since the magnitude of these fluctuations is likely to be extremely small. Only the average force produced by all the particles over time is important in determining the pressure. Similarly for other properties, it is the average behavior that is important. The partition function provides a way to determine the most likely average behavior of atoms and molecules given information about the microscopic properties of the material.
In order to derive the partition function, consider a system composed of N molecules. Although the system has a constant total energy of E, the energy may be distributed among the molecules in any number of ways. As molecules interact, the energy is continually redistributed. Not only is energy exchanged between molecules, but between the various modes of motion (eg. rotation, vibration, etc...). Instead of attempting to determine the energy of each individual molecule at every instant in time, we instead focus on the population of each energetic state. In other words, we would like to determine on average how many molecules, ni, are in a particular energetic state, Ei. Over time the population of each state remains almost constant, although the individual molecules in each state may change at every collision.
In order to proceed we assume the principle of equal a priori probabilities. This means that we assume that all states corresponding to a given energy are equally probable. For example, vibrational states of a given energy are just as likely to be populated as rotational or electronic states of the same energy. We also assume that the molecules are independent in the sense that the total energy of the system is equal to the sum of the energies of each individual particle.
At any instant there will be n0 molecules in the state with energy E0, n1 with E1, and so on. The complete specification of populations n0, n1,... for each energy state gives the instantaneous configuration of the system. For convenience we may write a particular configuration as {n0, n1,...}. We'll also take E0 to correspond to the lowest energy level or the ground state.
A large number of configurations are possible. For instance one possible configuration is {N,0,0,...} with all of the molecules in the ground state, E0. Another possible configuration could be {N-1,1,0,...}, where one of the molecules is in the excited state, E1. Of these two configurations, the second is much more likely, since any of the N molecules could be in the excited state resulting in a total of N possible arrangements of molecules. On the other hand there is only one possible way to get the first configuration, since all of the molecules must be in the ground state. If the system were free to fluctuate between these two states, we would expect to find it most frequently in the second state, especially for large values of N. Since the system would most often be found in the second state, we would also expect the characteristics of the system to be dominated by the characteristics of that state.
The number of arrangements, W, corresponding to a given configuration {n0, n1,...} is given by:
When working with large numbers it is often convenient to work with ln(W) instead of W itself. For this case:
One way to find the maximum of ln(W) is to solve the equation: