Course syllabus and reading assignments
 
 
Date Subject Chapters in Reif's book Chapters in Sethna's book
August 27 Probabilities  
August 30
Random Walk 1.1-1.5 1
September 1
Central Limit Theorem 1.6-1.11
September 3
Microcanonical Ensemble 2.1-2.4 3.1, 3.2
September 6
Density Matrix   6.1
September 8
Counting Microstates 2.5 2.1-2.3
September 10 Interactions between Systems 2.6-2.11
September 13 Temperature and Entropy 3.1-3.5 2.4, 4.1
September 15 Quasi Static Processes 3.6-3.13
September 17 Heat Capacity 4.1-4.7
September 20 Gibbs Paradox 7.3, 7.4 4.2
September 22 Thermodynamics: Ideal Gas 5.1-5.4
September 24 Maxwell Relations 5.5-5.8 5.1
September 27 Joule-Thomson Process 5.9-5.10
September 29
Heat Engines 5.11-5.12
October 1
Canonical Ensemble 6.1-6.8, 7.1-7.2 5.2, 5.3
October 4
Equipartition Theorem 7.5-7.7 6.2
October 6
first prelim  
October 8
Kinetic Theory of Gases 7.9-7.13
October 13 Diatomic Ideal Gas 9.12
October 15
Chemical Potential 8.1-8.4, 8.7, 8.9, 8.10
October 18
Liquid-Vapor Phase Transition 8.5, 8.6, 8.8 12.1
October 20 Grand Canonical Ensemble 6.9 5.4
October 22 Classical Nonideal Gas 10.3-10.5
October 25 Paramagnetism 7.8
October 27
Ferromagnetism 10.6, 10.7 7.1
October 29
Magnetic Cooling 11.1-11.4
November 1
Bose-Einstein Statistics
6.3, 6.4
November 3
Bose-Einstein Condensation 9.1-9.6 6.6
November 5
Photons 9.13

November 8
second prelim


November 10 Black-body Radiation 9.14, 9.15 6.6
November 12 Phonons 7.7, 10.1, 10.2
November 15 Fermi-Dirac Statistics 9.7, 9.8 6.3, 6.4
November 17
Sommerfeld Model 9.16-9.17 6.7
November 19
Transport
Ch. 12, 13, 14

November 22


November 24
 
 
 
Novermber 29



December 1
Renormalization Group (1)  
December 3
Renormalization Group (2)  

You can find the notes handed out in lecture here (ps, pdf).

Relevant chapters in other books:

Probability Theories: Ambegaokar, Chs. 1-6
Building blocks of Statistical Mechanics:  Bailerlein, Ch. 4; Waldram, Chs. 2, 19.
Gibbs and the Gibbs paradox: Gibbs, Ch. 15 and here.
Thermodynamics: Bailerlein, Ch. 2; Waldram, Chs. 7, 8.
Heat engines: Baierlein, Ch. 3.
Canonical ensemble: Baierlein, Ch. 5.
Diatomic ideal gas: Widom, Ch. 2.
Chemical potential: Baierlein, Ch. 7; Waldram, Ch. 11; Widom, Ch. 3.
Classical nonideal gas: Waldram, Ch. 14; Widom, Ch. 6.
Magnetism:  Waldram, Ch. 18.
Magnetic cooling: Waldram, Ch. 15.
Bose-Einstein condensation: Nobel Prize 2001.