[Introduction and General
Format|Syllabus]
[Problem Sets and Term Project Assignment|
Recommended Books; Suggested Reading]
[Office Hours|
[Lecture Notes|
Random Information]
The course will meet in Room 2128 of the Physics Research Building, NOT in the room announced in the catalog.
Most course information will be available on this web site, and will also be distributed by email.
ADDING THE CLASS: If you are unable to register for this class, please come to the first class and I will sign an add slip.
Grades will be based on problem sets and a short term project. Grading will be on the usual scale for post-core courses.
Note: a useful online math reference is http://mathworld.wolfram.com, which has lots of analysis, plus a great deal of information about special functions. Two good books are "Tables of Integrals, Series, and Products," 6th ed., by Gradshteyn, Ryzhik, Jeffrey, and Zwillinger (Academic, San Diego, 2000), and "Mathematical Methods for Physicists," by Arfken, Weber, and Weber (Academic, San Diego, 2001).
oTerm Project Assignment (in .pdf format).
oProb. Set 1 (in .pdf format).
oSolutions to Problem Set 1.
oProb. Set 2 (in .pdf).
oSolutions to Problem Set 2.
oProb. Set 3 (in .pdf).
oSolutions to Problem Set 3.
oProb. Set 4 (in .pdf).
My office hours will be Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:30 to 12:30, and any other time you can find me. My office is PRB2048, and my email is stroud@mps.ohio-state.edu.
There are no required textbooks. However, useful material can be found in a number of recommended books. Here is a short list of recommended books which include some material related to the lectures:
``A Modern Course on Statistical Physics,'' by L. E. Reichl (Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1998). Relevant parts are chapters 8 and 9 for equilibrium statistical mechanics, and parts of chapters 10 and 11.
``Statistical Mechanics,'' 2nd edition, by R. K. Pathria (Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 1996), especially chapters 9, 11, 13, and 14.
``Equilibrium Statistical Physics,'' by Michael Plischke and Birger Bergersen (Prentice-Hall, New York, 1989). Relevant parts are chapters 3-6 and parts of chapter 8.
``Lectures on Phase Transitions and the Renormalization Group,'' by Nigel Goldenfeld (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1992).
``Statistical Physics,'' 3rd edition (Course of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 5, Parts I and II), by E. M. Lifshitz and L. D. Landau (Oxford U. P., Oxford, 1980; reprinted several times).
``Statistical Mechanics,'' 2nd edition, by Kerson Huang (Wiley, New York, 1987).
Click on the red circles below to download lecture notes in pdf format. These are my hand-written notes, were originally intended for my eyes only, and I do not guarantee that they are mistake-free. I am posting them in case some of you find them useful.
o Class notes through Thursday, September 29.
o Class notes for Tuesday, October 4 and Thursday, October 6.
o Class notes from Tuesday, October 11 through Tuesday, October 18 (spin waves in Heisenberg model; classical fluids).
o Fourth set of class notes (critical phenomena, critical exponents, scaling).
o Fifth set of class notes (liquid Helium 4).
oSixth set of class notes (introduction to renormalization group).
oSeventh set of class notes (time-dependent phenomena: Brownian motion and Boltzmann equation).
oLudwig Boltzmann
o Albert Einstein