The specific heats of crystals

Summary

In Einstein’s atomistic approach to the specific heat problem, a crystal is regarded as an assembly of sets of individual harmonic oscillators, each set consisting of a great number of oscillators having a common frequency of vibration. In the present paper, this view is developed and an expression is obtained for the thermal energy of the crystal which appears as a summation of (24p — 3) terms arising from the individual monochromatic frequencies of internal vibration of the dynamic units of the crystal structure each containing 8p atoms, with a supplementary term which takes account of the translational movements of the same units manifesting themselves as a continuous spectrum of frequencies of vibration within the crystal.