Phys 219-12!
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| * All lecture notes up to today (and a bit more) are uploaded now. Please use them as your guide. Let me know of any typos and such, as you discover them. * [[Homework+|Homework 3]] is on-line. If you have any question, let me know through any channel. |
Past news of persistent value
The solutions to the first homework are posted. Read them and you will be rewarded!
I just re-directed a question to our forum page. Please feel free to answer any question there, or ask questions yourself. We are all here to help one another. [Did I mention that this web site and the forum site accept LaTeX?]
I have gotten some inquiries about the textbook (or what to read). Very nice! The textbook is Statistical Physics of Particles by Mehran Kardar. I will also use some of Equilibrium Statistical Physics by Plischke and Bergersen. You can also read your favorite statistical/thermal physics book (your undergrad text or the one by, e.g., Landau, Feynman, or Fermi), if you have time and energy. However, following lectures well and reading one or two sources thoroughly is often a much better strategy than reading too many books, as far as following a course is concerned.
Past news of purely archival value
- All lecture notes up to today (and a bit more) are uploaded now. Please use them as your guide. Let me know of any typos and such, as you discover them.
Homework 3 is on-line. If you have any question, let me know through any channel.
Next class, we will study why X-ray scattering has a lot to do with the things that we've been discussing so far. I will leave the rest of the topics in the textbook for reading, and will merely mention some of them (mean field theory, variational principle) very briefly. And then we will get into quantum statistical physics. However, most of the stuff in quantum statistical physics is standard stuff in undergrad curricula. So, I will be moving very fast. Please be sure to read them, though. – 6:31PM, May 01, 2012
If you did not check the Forum page recently, then there is a 99.46 % chance that you will find something useful there. – 7:29AM, Apr 22, 2012
- Next class, we will discuss the relaxation approximation of the Boltzmann equation and then summarize key aspects of the semi-classical statistical physics. Please note that much is left for your reading, while a significant part of my classroom discussions will be on what is between the lines in the textbook or what is not in the textbook.
- Next class, I will discuss the Poincare recurrence (not in the book) and the Boltzmann H theorem. The Boltzmann equation and its origin will be discussed also. The kinetic theory of gases will be concluded.
Next class, we will spend a short time on the entropy function of a probability distribution and optimizing it under constraint (see LN 4), and then start delving into classical statistical physics, starting with the kinetic theory of gas. Mathematical topics such as Levy distribution function and the Stirling's formula will be mentioned briefly but I won't spend much time on them, partly because you probably learned it already (Stirling's formula, e.g.; or it is just a formula, in some sense) or you will deal with it in homework (Levy distribution). Please keep reading the book along with my notes! As I said in class, I find the book quite good, really. [But, you should not be shy about letting me know what you think.]