The URL of this page is http://www.physics.smu.edu/scalise/P3374fa20/
Physics 3374 - Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
Course Information
Fall 2020
"Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying
statistical mechanics, died in 1906 by his own hand.
Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on his work, died similarly in 1933.
Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps
it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously."
-- David L. Goodstein (States of Matter, Dover 1985)
- Coronavirus Impact: This course will be taught fully online.
- Lecturer:
Professor Randall J. Scalise
- Meeting time: MWF 11:00PM-11:50AM on Zoom.
- Office hours: after lecture and by appointment.
- Contact:
- Program Objective: Students will be able to solve problems in Statistical Mechanics
- Exam Dates: Open book, open notes, open Mathematica, closed
Google (you may look up numerical constants, but you should not try to
find solutions to the problems).
- Midterm - Wednesday 7 October 2020 in class
- Final - Thursday, 10 December 2020, 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM
- Attendance: Students are expected to attend every lecture.
A student who is absent from class without valid reason for two
consecutive weeks will be referred to the
CCC
Program and, if unresponsive, may be administratively dropped from the class by the instructor.
- Plagiarism
- Disability Accommodations and Success Strategies
- Get Information and Know What To Do During an Emergency
- Practice midterm
- Practice final
- Mathematica tutorial: PDF 4 pages, 32563 bytes
- Grading:
- Homework - 60% (drop lowest)
- Midterm Examination - 20%
- Final Examination - 20%
- PHYS 3374 Text: An Introduction to Thermal Physics by Daniel V. Schroeder
- Syllabus
Professor Kent Hornbostel's lecture notes based on grown-up Reif
- Homework: Due dates are strictly enforced.
50% if late; 0% once the solutions are posted. You may work together, but
the work that you turn in should be unique. Identical work will receive a
grade that is divided among all parties. It is possible to find answers to
some homework solutions on the internet; do not do this. The point, after all,
is not to fool me into thinking that you have learned physics, but rather actually
to learn some physics.
- homework #1 (PDF format) - due Monday 31 August 2020 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #2 (PDF format) - due Monday 7 September 2020 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #3 (PDF format) - due Monday 14 September 2020 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #4 (PDF format) - due Monday 21 September 2020 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #5 (PDF format) - due Monday 28 September 2020 at 11:59:59pm
- No homework due on Monday 5 October 2020 because of the midterm exam on Wednesday 7 October 2020.
- homework #6 (PDF format) - due Monday 12 October 2020 at 11:59:59pm.
- homework #7 (PDF format) - due Monday 19 October 2020 at 11:59:59pm.
- homework #8 (PDF format) - due Monday 26 October 2020 at 11:59:59pm.
- homework #9 (PDF format) - due Monday 2 November 2020 at 11:59:59pm.
- homework #10 (PDF format) - due Monday 9 November 2020 at 11:59:59pm.
- homework #11 (PDF format) - due Monday 16 November 2020 at 11:59:59pm.
- homework #12 (PDF format) - due Monday 23 November 2020 at 11:59:59pm.
- Homework Solutions
- Disability Accommodations, Religious and Excused Absences
- Official University Calendar
- Other Resources:
- A Mnemonic Scheme for Thermodynamics by J.-C. Zhao, MRS Bulletin, Volume 34, Feb 2009.
- S Is for Entropy. U Is for Energy. What Was Clausius Thinking? by Irmgard K. Howard, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed078p505
- "Baby Reif" Statistical Physics: Berkeley Physics Course, Vol. 5 by Frederick Reif
- Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics by Frederick Reif
- Statistical Mechanics: Entropy, Order Parameters and Complexity by James P. Sethna
- Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics by Claude Garrod
- Heat and Thermodynamics by Mark Waldo Zemansky
- The Principles of Chemical Equilibrium: With Applications in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering by K.G. Denbigh
- More textbooks
- Thermal Physics by Charles Kittel and Herbert Kroemer
- Statistical Mechanics by Kerson Huang
- Statistical Physics by L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz
(Volume 5 of the Course of Theoretical Physics)
- Feynman lectures Volume 1 Chapters 39-46
- Statistical Mechanics: A Set Of Lectures by Richard P. Feynman
- Leonard Susskind - Statistical Mechanics 2009 from YouTube
- Leonard Susskind - Statistical Mechanics 2013 from YouTube
- Leonard Susskind | Lecture 1: Boltzmann and the Arrow of Time
- Partition Function - Wikipedia
- Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
- Classical statistical mechanics
Lecture Series on Classical Physics by Prof.V.Balakrishnan, Department of Physics, IIT Madras.
- Course in Thermal and Statistical Physics
undergraduate class on thermal and statistical physics by Mark Ancliff
- Physics 12c Statistical Mechanics by John Preskill @Caltech
- MIT Open Courseware (Physics)
- Dr. Henry Glyde's lecture notes
- Prof. Ralf Bundschuh's Statistical Physics I course at the THE Ohio State University
- Mechanical Universe 45, 46, 47, 48.
- Maxwell's Demon: Why Warmth Disperses and Time Passes
by Hans Christian Von Baeyer
- From Eternity to Here:
The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time Paperback by Sean Carroll
- Introduction to Renormalization by Simon DeDeo
- Welcome To Hotel Boltzmann
- Ludwig Boltzmann - Response to Josef Loschmidt
- H-Theorem
- Einstein's Approach to Statistical Mechanics: The 1902-04 Papers by
Luca Peliti and Raúl Rechtman
- Flanders & Swann - 'First And Second Law'
- Ising model 2 dim by Daniel Schroeder
Back to Professor Scalise's Home Page
"[Thermodynamics] is the only physical theory of a general nature of which
I am convinced that it will never be overthrown."
--Albert Einstein