Statistical Physics: Elements of Continuity in German History 1871-1945: 13 (Student Physics Series)

by Tony Guenault (Author)

• Used

  Kindle eBook
  1988

  $10.20

  Statistical physics is not a difficult subject, and I trust that this will not be found a difficult book. It contains much that a number of generations of Lancaster students have studied with me, as part of their physics honours degree work. The lecture course was of twenty hours duration, and I have added comparatively little to the lecture syllabus. A pre- requisite is that the reader should have a working knowledge of basic thermal physics (i.e. the laws of thermodynamics and their application to simple substances). The book Thermal Physics by Colin Finn in this series forms an ideal introduc- tion. Statistical physics has a thousand and one different ways of approaching the same basic results. I have chosen a rather down-to-earth and unsophisticated approach, without I hope totally obscuring the considerable interest of the fun- damentals. This enables applications to be introduced at an early stage in the book. As a low-temperature physicist, I have always found a particular interest in statistical physics, and especially in how the absolute zero is approached. I should not, therefore, apologize for the low-temperature bias in the topics which I have selected from the many possibilities.

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $8.64

  Some new material has been added to this second edition, whilst leaving the organization of the rest of the book (chapters 1 to 12) unchanged. The new chapters aim to illustrate the basic ideas in three rather distinct and (almost) independent ways. Chapter 13 gives a discussion of chemical thermodynamics, including something about chemical equilibrium. Chapter 14 explores how some interacting systems can still be treated by a simple statistical approach, and Chapter 15 looks at two interesting applications of statistical physics, namely superfluids and astrophysics. The book should be useful for university courses of various lengths and types. Several examples follow: Basic general course for physics undergraduates (20 to 25 lectures): most of Chapters 1 to 12, omitting any of Chapters 7, 10, 11 and 12 if time is short; (2) Short introductory course on statistical ideas (about 10 lectures): Chapters 1, 2 and 3 possibly with material added from Chapters 10 and 11; (3) Following (2), a further short course on statisics of gases (15 lectures); Chapters 4-6 and 8-9, with additional material available from Chapter 14 and 15.2 ; (4) For chemical physics (20 lectures): Chapters 1-7 and 10-13; (5) As an introduction to condensed matter physics (20 lectures): Chapters l-6, 8-12, 14, 15.1.