Average customer rating:
- Green's functions, superfluids, superconductors, magnetism
- Great Book, the best I've ever seen!
- Unrivalled Masterpiece
- A UNIQUE BOOK ON MODERN STATISTICAL PHYSICS
- THE BEST BOOK ON STATISTICAL PHYSICS
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Statistical Physics (Course of Theoretical Physics, Volume 5)
E M Lifshitz , and
L D Landau
Manufacturer: Butterworth-Heinemann
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Quantum Mechanics: Non-Relativistic Theory, Volume 3, Third Edition (Quantum Mechanics)
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ASIN: 0750633727 |
Book Description
A lucid presentation of statistical physics and thermodynamics which develops from the general principles to give a large number of applications of the theory.
Customer Reviews:
Green's functions, superfluids, superconductors, magnetism.......2004-12-12
This review is for Volume 9 of the Landau Course of Theoretical Physics.
The whole Course is clear and concise, so it makes sense for anyone who wants to do theoretical physics to go through all ten volumes.
We start off with normal Fermi liquids and gases, including a nice discussion of Zero Sound (which is distinguished from normal sound mostly by a slight increase in the sound velocity as one gets colder than a transition temperature, and by increased absorption of sound near the transition temperature). Then we learn about Green's functions in a Fermi system at T = 0 and Feynman diagram representations of them.
After that, we study Bose liquids and gases. That means the properties of superfluids, including quasi-particles (phonons and rotons) and quantized vortex filaments. And the book shows how to apply Green's functions to Bose liquids. There's an interesting section on the disintegration of quasi-particles. Next, we're introduced to Green's functions for T > 0, using the Matsubara operators to reduce the complexity of the diagrams.
And then we're ready to learn about superconductors. That means learning about Cooper pairing and superfluid Fermi gases, and learning how to apply Green's functions to them. And, not surprisingly, we learn the Ginzburg-Landau equations, so that we can determine the behavior of superconductors in magnetic fields in temperature ranges near the transition point.
There's also a chapter on electrons in the crystal lattice, including the de Hass-van Alphen effect (which refers to a metal's magnetic susceptibility oscillating as the strength of a strong magnetic field changes - due to the quantization of the energy levels of the electrons) and electron-phonon interactions. And there's a nice chapter on magnetism.
In the preface, the authors state "we must again stress that this book is part of a course of theoretical physics and in no way attempts to be a textbook of solid state theory." Are they kidding? This course is an excellent way to learn solid state physics.
Great Book, the best I've ever seen!.......2001-08-24
no words can describe the richness and clarity of this book.the description of Maxwell's distribution, Gibbs formalism,etc...all with marvelous clarity and rigour. Everyone who wants to learn statistical Mechanics (under and graduates) MUST read this book.
Unrivalled Masterpiece.......2001-05-06
This book is a classic, especially in the sense it is somewhat old fashioned in its basic approaches when compared with newer books. For example it examines statistics and entropy from the ergodic as opposed to the ensemble approach. Information Theory and role of symmetry and symmetry breaking is not treated in detail. However I can't hold these omissions against the book since these developments happend mostly in the late 70s.
What Landau does here, and which in explicably very few Statistical Mechanics books do nowadays, is the full Gibbs Formalism. Not only is the Gibbs Formalism more compatible with Quantum Mechanics, it can also fits in beautifully with Ensemble Statistics and Inofrmation Theory. More over, it is at once clear Maxwell and Boltzmann statistics are only special cases of the Gibbs formalism, and can be easily shown in a few lines.
What Landau does, is to gave an elegant and cohesive view the trully fundamental features of Statistical Mechanics. Chapters 1-6 of this book alone displays a deeper level of understanding than whole books that have been written. If you are interested in Statistical Mechanics at all, this must be a centerpiece of your library.
A UNIQUE BOOK ON MODERN STATISTICAL PHYSICS.......1998-07-24
This is the Volume 9 of the famous Course of Theoretical Physics by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz. All serious students of theoretical physics must possess the ten volumes of this excellente Course, which cover in detail and rigour practically all the branches of theoretical physics. The Volume 9 treats important specialized topics of modern statistical physics. These topics include the theory of quantum liquids(Fermi and Bose types), the theory of superfluidity, created by Landau to account for the phenomena ocurring in liquid helium at approximately 2 kelvin, the microscopic theory of superconductivity, the general method of Green's functions, so important to modern statistical physics, and some other topics, such as the quantum mechanics of a electron in a crystal lattice. The book still contains the general theory of electromagnetic and hydrodynamic fluctuations, treated in the spirit of the Green's functions. These topics are treated with rigour, efficiency and c! larity of language. For this reason, all readers with some aqquaintance with basic statistical physics can read and understand much of this book without major problems. Certainly there is not other book comparable with the Volume 9, a unique and valuable addition to the literature on modern statistical physics!
THE BEST BOOK ON STATISTICAL PHYSICS.......1998-07-23
This is the Volume 5 of the famous Course of Theoretical Physics by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz. All serious students of theoretical physics must possess the ten volumes of this excellent Course, which cover in detail and rigour practically all the branches of theoretical physics. The Volume 5 treats the subject of classical and quantum statistics. It contains an unusual approach of these subjects, based on the general Gibbs method, avoiding the introduction of ergodic hypotheses and, in the case of the ideal gas, of "a priori" probabilities, which are difficult to justify and serves only to obscure the exposition. The book is complete and contains chapters not usually found in other similar books, such as the chapter on second-order phase transitions. The clarity of exposition and rigour is notorious in this book. A magnific book!
Book Description
All the tools necessary to understand the concepts underlying today's statistical physics
A Modern Course in Statistical Physics goes beyond traditional textbook topics and incorporates contemporary research into a basic course on statistical mechanics. From the universal nature of matter to the latest results in the spectral properties of decay processes, this book emphasizes the theoretical foundations derived from thermodynamics and probability theory that underlie all concepts in statistical physics. Each chapter focuses on a core topic and includes extensive illustrations, exercises, and experimental data as well as a section with more advanced topics and applications. This comprehensive treatment of traditional and modern topics:
* Covers equilibrium and nonequilibrium thermodynamics
* Presents the foundations of probability theory and stochastic processes
* Derives statistical mechanics from ergodic theory
* Examines the origin of thermodynamic and hydrodynamic behavior
* Emphasizes equilibrium and nonequilibrium phase transitions
* Presents theories of random walks and Brownian motion
* Discusses hydrodynamics and transport theory of chemical mixtures and discontinuous systems
* Presents transport theory on microscopic and macroscopic levels
* Includes thermodynamics of biophysical processes
Comprehensive coverage of numerous core topics and special applications gives professors flexibility to individualize course design. And the inclusion of advanced topics and extensive references makes this an invaluable resource for researchers as well as students-a textbook that will be retained on the shelf long after the course is completed.
An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department.
Customer Reviews:
Reads like an encyclopedia .......2007-05-03
I used this textbook for a Graduate Statistical Mechanics course at Rutgers University.
The Bad
- terrible to learn concepts from for the first time. Makes almost no attempt to help develop intuitive feel for the concepts at hand. Problems and equations are presented with very little motivation or connection to the subject as whole. Derivations show sparse amount of steps, but with little explanation of how to get from one point to the other.
- Typos?? This book has a surprising amount of errors in it, most problematically in the equations themselves.
The good
- Covers ALOT of material that the others (Pathria, Reif) don't get near such as Renormalization Groups and pretty much every single Special Topics sections at the end of the chapters. Although I found very little use for this textbook while taking the course (Landau & Pathria were the main books I looked to) I am glad to have it for my bookshelf since it seems to offer a lot of interesting reference on the more advanced subjects.
the key physics is largely buried under the heavy notations and equations.......2006-07-11
if you don't have enough energy to bite through from the beginning, stay away from this book. The key physics is largely buried under the (unnecessarily) heavy notations and equations.
However, it may be a good source for reference.
Cumbersome.......2003-03-11
I found this book to be clumsy in its notation and sloppy in its delivery. The information presented in the book is more than comprehensive, however. Each chapter ends with a "special topics" section that covers new and old ideas in the field. Yet the book manages to fall short with its organization and presentation. When new concepts are introduced, very little background is given, and steps in calculations are often bypassed. There are many examples to follow, but even the examples seem pointless when the next step in the derivation has been skipped and it takes the reader several minutes to find the connection. In addition, the book is a somewhat poor reference in the way that many chapters cannot stand alone, due to the quirky notation that is scattered all over the book. If one is not familiar with this notation, then if one wishes to reference the book, he or she will have to waste time finding out why the author uses a capital N there and a small n here, a "mu prime" there and a "mu" here, or a vector k there and an apparently scalar k here.
In summary, the book is comprehensive, covering a wide range of ideas both new and old, but it fails in the fact that it cannot present the information in a clear manner.
The best grad-level book on this subject I've seen.......2002-09-30
This is not a book for total beginners, but those with a good math background and at least a rudimentary understanding of thermodynamics should be able to bring their knowledge to a very high level by diligently studying Reichl's text.
The book starts out with a couple of chapters on "non-statistical" thermodynamics and a few chapters on probability and stochastic processes; this provides a firm foundation for the equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics to which the latter two-thirds of the book is devoted. Throughout the book the explanations and derivations are very clear, and the inclusion of worked sample problems is a definite plus. Highly recommended for any grad student (or advanced undergrad) in physics, materials science, etc.
an excellent textbook for graduate students.......2000-04-14
I'm glad that there's "eventually" a stat-mech textbook that takes from grads' points of view. It starts from a undergrad level of thermodynamics and ends to somewhere close to renormalization group. It's a book with clear examples, figures, and explicit derivation of equations for average grad students rather than particular flock of "genius". I gave it two thumbs up.
Average customer rating:
- great book, awful printing
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Complete Statistical Physics
Berkeley Physics Course
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
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Binding: Paperback
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Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics (McGraw-Hill Series in Fundamentals of Physics)
ASIN: 0070386625 |
Book Description
This last volume of the Berkeley Physics Course is devoted to the study of large-scale systems consisting of many atoms or molecules:thus it provides an introduction to the subjects of statistical mechanics, kinetic theory, thermo- dynamics, and heat. The approach is not patterned upon the historical development of these subjects and does not pro- ceed along conventional lines. The aim has been to adopt a modern point of view and to show, in as systematic and simple way as possible, how the basic notions of atomic theory lead to a conceptual framework capable of describing and predicting the properties of macroscopic systems.
Customer Reviews:
great book, awful printing.......2003-07-14
This is probably the best introductory textbook on Statistical
Physics ever written. Unfortunately, this printing has the
quality of a photocopy of the original edition, and a bad
quality photocopy I should say.
Several pictures are completely blurred and the details are
impossible to see. It is really a shame that the publisher
McGraw-Hill charges such a high price (almost 90 dollars)
for this badly done photocopy of such a great book.
Average customer rating:
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A Course in Statistical Mechanics
Harold L. Friedman
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall College Div
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0131845659 |
Product Description
2 volume set
Book Description
This book is the result of an AMS Short Course on Knots and Physics that was held in San Francisco (January 1994). The range of the course went beyond knots to the study of invariants of low dimensional manifolds and extensions of this work to four manifolds and to higher dimensions. The authors use ideas and methods of mathematical physics to extract topological information about knots and manifolds.
Features:
A basic introduction to knot polynomials in relation to statistical link invariants.
Concise introductions to topological quantum field theories and to the role of knot theory in quantum gravity.
Knots and Physics would be an excellent supplement to a course on algebraic topology or a physics course on field theory.
Average customer rating:
- Best Stat Mech Book I've read
|
Statistical Mechanics: An Intermediate Course
Giuseppe Morandi
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 9810222998 |
Book Description
This book covers the foundations of classical thermodynamics, with emphasis on the use of differential forms of classical and quantum statistical mechanics, and also on the foundational aspects. In both contexts, a number of applications are considered in detail, such as the general theory of response, correlations and fluctuations, and classical and quantum spin systems. In the quantum case, a self-contained introduction to path integral methods is given. In addition, the book discusses phase transitions and critical phenomena, with applications to the Landau theory and to the Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity, and also to the phenomenon of Bose condensation and of superfluidity. Finally, there is a careful discussion on the use of the renormalization group in the study of critical phenomena.
Customer Reviews:
Best Stat Mech Book I've read.......2003-07-13
Although it is a little weak in the coverage of all applications of statistical mechanics, my overall rating for this book is excellent. It's comprehensible inclusion of mathematics such as group theory and topology in a typical stat. mech. exposition as well as its superlative treatment of spin hamiltonians are among the reasons for my enthusiastic rating.
Amazon.com
The cynical view of Kaye Gibbons's The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster would be that the Poor Little Match Girl has morphed into Cinderella. Ellen Foster, a book anointed by Oprah's Book Club®, was the tale of young Ellen, daughter of a neurasthenic twit of a mother and a drunken abusive father, who was tossed out of her wicked aunt's home on Christmas Day (Shades of Dickens!). Plucky Ellen fetcheed up at the doorstep of her chosen foster mother and life settled down.
This book begins with a too cute, aggressively innocent letter to Derek Bok, President of Harvard University, asking for early admission. Now that Ellen is 15, she believes that she is ready for a larger world, a better education and a different life. That pursuit becomes an incidental subtext to ongoing events. The next two-thirds of the book feels experimental, with a jumpy, jerky style, information left out, information left in that goes nowhere--not easy reading. Then, Gibbons takes control of her story and turns everything upside down, in Ellen's favor.
There are some priceless exchanges in the book. Regarding an insight that comes to one for the first time: "It didn't matter if a thousand scholars studied how Madame Bovary probably wouldn't have had to rot from the inside if she'd read better books in her girlhood, if the idea strikes you in Baltimore in a room full of people who say they already know, my theory is it's still your personal view." And this, when she is annoying her friend, Stuart: "Stuart, I said, I never know what to do when you decide to let me in on an argument you've been having for us."
So, what does all of this add up to? A good, not great, sequel to the quite good Ellen Foster that is only an adjective away from mawkishness and sentimentality. If we adopt the aforementioned cynical view, the story becomes a treacly fable where the good prevail--and even get rich. A more generous view is that Ellen has suffered enough and it's her turn. Read it and take your pick. --Valerie Ryan
Book Description
In this sequel to Gibbons’s beloved classic Ellen Foster, Ellen, now fifteen, is settled into a permanent home with a new mother. Strengthened by adversity and blessed with enough intelligence to design a salvation for herself, she still feels ill at ease. But while she holds fast to the shreds of her childhood—humoring her best friend, Stuart, who is determined to marry her; and protecting her old neighbor, slow-witted Starletta—she begins to negotiate her way into a larger world.
With a singular mix of perspicacity, naïveté, and compassion, Ellen draws us into her life and makes us fall in love with her all over again.
Customer Reviews:
A sequel that stands on its own........2007-03-08
You fall in love all over again with Ellen Foster and her observations and experiences of the "life around" her. Kaye Gibbons does not disappoint. As a reader of all of Gibbons work and a native of NC, I am continually amazed at her ability to bring the essence of the South in both historical and personal perspectives. The description of the Moravians at the fair and the isolation that she felt at John Hopkins ring true as do the wonderful characters that fill in Ellen's life. For those who felt the dialogue awkward, I suggest a second reading and yes people do burn tires (it was the early 70's) and sell bad poetry - teacher's wouldn't have believed good poetry.
Highly disappointing.......2007-03-02
I have treasured Kaye Gibbon's previous books and have always recommended her to my friends. I won't even pass this one along to anyone. The style, with Ellen's quirky syntax was not only difficult to read, but the plot (what there was of it) was terribly tedious and I simply could not relate to any of the
characters. I finally gave up after reading half way through. Come on, Kaye, write us another wonderful book!
Penelope Langan
Difficult to follow.......2006-11-22
Although the general premise is intriguing, this sequel to Ellen Foster left me disappointed.
The book begins with a letter from 15-year-old Ellen to the president of Harvard University, citing the reasons he should be interested in helping her achieve her dream of higher education. From there, Ellen fills readers in on what's been happening in the three years since they met her last: finally finding happiness in the home of her foster mother Laura, making herself secure within a tight-knit circle of odd friends, and seeking closure with the aunt and cousin who threw her out of their house on Christmas when she was eleven.
Despite my interest in the plot, I found it extremely difficult to follow Gibbons' writing style. She does not use quotes, and basically attempts to depict Ellen's life woes and joys in the rambly, vague manner of someone who should already be privy to all the information and is currently living through it. In certain cases, it took me several references before I could deduce who certain characters were.
It shouldn't be that much work to read a book for pleasure.
disappointing.......2006-10-24
I loved "Ellen Foster," the prequel to this book. I thought it rang true and was a poignant, hilarious and honest look at a young girl's struggle to survive her dysfunctional family in the South.
However, this book fails to live up to its predecessor. There is very little plot, although the writer could easily have used Ellen's quest to go to Harvard early as a consistent thread. Instead, we get scenes with tedious characters, as Ellen waits to hear from the school. Some parts are downright unbelievalbe, such as when Ellen earns money to attend a summer program by selling verse to her classmates, so they can then turn it in as homework. It's clear the school is not a good one, and even at the finest prep school, if half the student body started turning in poems, even the densest staff would suspect something underhand. But not here. Also, at $4 per poem, Ellen would have to do approximately 100 classmates' homework to reach her goal, which you'd think would finally clue the teachers into a cheating scandal. While this may seem a minor point that it's unfair to harp on, it helped destroy the book's credibility, particularly since the author made all Ellen's friends out to have subpar IQs. Plot holes big enough to drive a truck through makes it hard to enjoy the writing style, which did have its high points and the characters themselves, some of whom were engaging and likeable, if too good to be true.
I was also baffled as to why Ellen was unable to find kindred spirits at the summer program for the gifted and why she seemed to feel less alienated with people who didn't know who Holden Caulfield was. This does not bode well for her stay at Harvard, unless she matures some more.
The fairy tale ending also annoyed me. It's possible to give your characters' good fortune in return for their pluckiness, without making it completely implausible. I wish the author had done so here.
I'm being generous.......2006-10-23
I'm happy I borrowed this book from the library and didn't actually spend any hard earned money. I enjoyed Ellen Foster and Virtuous Woman, although I found the author's voice dull. I feel like I'm inside the head of Ellen Foster and I'm privy to any single thought, no matter how mundane, that runs through her head. I feel like it's a book about nothing!
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