The URL of this page is http://www.physics.smu.edu/scalise/P3374fa21/
Physics 3374 - Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
Course Information
Fall 2021
"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: Masks are required in this course. This masking policy is subject to change
during the semester, and any changes will be posted clearly in Canvas announcements.
- Lecturer:
Professor Randall J. Scalise
- Meeting time and place: MWF 11:00PM-11:50AM in Dallas Hall 351.
- 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 - during the class meeting time via Zoom, Wednesday 6 October 2021
- Final - Thursday 9 December 2021, 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
- SMU Required Syllabus Statements
- 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 Wednesday 1 September 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #2 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 8 September 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #3 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 15 September 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #4 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 22 September 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #5 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 29 September 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- No homework due on 6 October 2021 because of the midterm exam.
- No homework due on 13 October 2021 because of Fall Break.
- homework #6 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 20 October 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #7 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 27 October 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #8 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 3 November 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #9 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 10 November 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- homework #10 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 17 November 2021 at 11:59:59pm
- No homework due on 24 November 2021 because of Thanksgiving.
- homework #11 (PDF format) - due Wednesday 1 December 2021 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
- A refrigerator that works by stretching rubber bands
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