8/9/2019 Thermodynamics - Recommendations for Statistical Mechanics Book - Physics Stack Exchange

1/2

sign up log in tour help

Take the 2-minute tour !Physics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for active researchers, academics and students of physics. It's 100% free, no registration required.

Recomm endations for Statistical Mechanics book

I learned thermodynamics and the basics of statistical mechanics but I'd like to sit through a good advanced book/books. Mainly I just want it tobe thorough and to include all the math. And of course it's always good to give as much intuition about the material.

Some things I'd be happy if it includes (but again it mostly just needs to be a good clear book even if it doesn't contain these) are:

1. As much justifications for the postulates if possible, I'm very interested in reading more about how Liouville's theorem connects to thepostulates

2. Have examples of calculating partition functions, hopefully not just the partition function for the ideal gas.

thermodynamics statistical-mechanics resource-recommendations

edited Nov 5 '14 at 20:21 community wiki3 revs, 2 users 81%fiftyeight

Please writesubstantial answ ers th at detail the style, content, and prerequisites of the book, paper or other resource.Explain the nature of the resource so that readers can decide which one is best suited for them ratherthan relying on the opinions of others.

Before answering, please see on resource recommendation questions.our policy

Answers containing only a reference to a book or paper willbe removed!

1

A good advanced book that covers in details and with mathematical rigor what you want and much more isGallavotti's "Statistical Mechanics - a short treatise", which is not so short actually... You can get it from . hereYvan Velenik Jun 21 '12 at 20:07

Another good (but probably too advanced) book is the "old" book by Ruelle, "Statistical Mechanics - RigorousResults". If you have the level in maths, and are interested in the mathematical theory of phase transitions for latticesystems, the classical reference is Georgii's "Gibbs measures and phase transitions" (although that's moregraduate level stuff). Yvan Velenik Jun 21 '12 at 20:09

Just in case. Here are the google book pages for the last 2 refs, so that you can have an idea of w hat is done thereand at which lev el: , .Ruelle Georgi i Yvan Velenik Jun 22 '12 at 16:15

5 Answers

EDIT: My answer assumes that you're looking for a book at the introductory graduate level.

I found Pathria's "Statistical Mechanics" (2nd ed) very helpful during my first-year graduatestatistical mechanics course. Pathria's treatment of the subject is mathematically careful and

detailed, at least by physics standards; I found his discussion of Liouville's theorem (part 1 of yourquestion) satisfactory. Unfortunately, like many formal treatments, Pathria discusses few interestingapplications.

"Statistical Physics of Particles" by Kardar appears to be supplanting Pathria as the favoredintroductory graduate text; it was used at Boston University and at Caltech during my time there.Kardar is very terse and would probably have to be supplemented by another book, but theproblems he offers are interesting (if hard). In fact, about a third of the text consists of detailedsolutions to the problems.

I have heard good things about Reichl's book, already mentioned in another answer. I used it brieflyas a reference: the coverage of kinetic theory is more complete than in other sources. It is moreaccessible than Pathria, not to mention Kardar.

edited Nov 19 '12 at 22:53 community wiki3 revsTed Pudlik

I recommend the book ''A Modern Course in Statistical Physics'' by Reichl. It starts withphenomenological thermodynamics, covers both equilibrium and nonequilibrium statisticalmechanics, and discusses a wide range of applications, not only ideal and real gases. Its level ofrigor is that of typical books on theoretical physics.

http://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30617/revisionshttp://meta.physics.stackexchange.com/a/4698http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30550/recommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-bookhttp://physics.stackexchange.com/tourhttp://stackexchange.com/http://physics.stackexchange.com/users/8014http://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30617/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30617/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30550/recommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-book#comment67821_30550http://physics.stackexchange.com/users/8901/yvan-velenikhttp://books.google.ch/books?id=3vMCnvMH-hkC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://books.google.ch/books?id=mNtWfcj_xhwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30550/recommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-book#comment67683_30550http://physics.stackexchange.com/users/8901/yvan-velenikhttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30550/recommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-book#comment67682_30550http://physics.stackexchange.com/users/8901/yvan-velenikhttp://ergodic.ugr.es/FisicaEstadistica/bibliografia/G%20Gallavotti%20SM%20(359).pdfhttp://meta.physics.stackexchange.com/a/4698http://physics.stackexchange.com/users/6743http://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30550/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30550/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/resource-recommendationshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/statistical-mechanicshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/thermodynamicshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30550/recommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-bookhttp://physics.stackexchange.com/tourhttp://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30550/recommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-book#http://physics.stackexchange.com/tourhttps://physics.stackexchange.com/users/login?returnurl=http%3a%2f%2fphysics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f30550%2frecommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-bookhttps://physics.stackexchange.com/users/signup?returnurl=http%3a%2f%2fphysics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f30550%2frecommendations-for-statistical-mechanics-bookhttp://stackexchange.com/

8/9/2019 Thermodynamics - Recommendations for Statistical Mechanics Book - Physics Stack Exchange

2/2

You may also be interested in my book ; the part onstatistical mechanics is nearly independent of the remainder.

http://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/0810.1019v2.pdf

answered Jun 22 '12 at 12:34 community wiki Arnold Neumaier

As an undergrad, we used "Thermal Physics" by Kittel and Kroemer:

http://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Physics-Edition-Charles-Kittel/dp/0716710889

answered Jun 22 '12 at 15:11 community wikistl_piznaul

I recommend books by Kardar "Statistical Physics of Particles" "Statistical Physics of Fields" Themordern approach to this subject is helpful for your future study.

Also there are solutions to all of the problem, which you can find from the internet.

answered Jun 23 '12 at 1:29 community wikiCraig Thone

If anyone is interested in seeing how this is done from a chemist's perspective I can heartilyrecommend by Mark Tuckerman. Sadly,it isn't on line but can be ordered from Amazon or the like.

Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Molecular Simulation

answered Nov 20 '12 at 2:20 community wikiPaul J. Gans

http://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/44655/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/44655/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30645/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30645/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30622/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30622/revisionshttp://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0716710889http://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30611/revisionshttp://physics.stackexchange.com/posts/30611/revisionshttp://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/0810.1019v2.pdf