Recommendation: Graduate level thermo/Stat mech text

[KCook3824]

Hello all,

I'm taking a graduate stat mech course that does not use a text and could really use a good text for reference and supplemental reading. It's been about 13 years since my last thermodynamics course so hoping such a text would have a decent review of thermodynamic relations and quantities (though I'm not opposed to a separate text for that either).

My instructor recommended "Foundations of Statistical and Thermal Physics" by F. Reif to the class, which is...ok but hoping to find something that work better for me personally.

Thanks in advance

 

[vanhees71]

Reif is excellent but pretty advanced and sometimes lengthy. To get a better overview just take the Statistical-Physics volume of the Berkeley Physics course, which is also written by the same author (sometimes it's referred to as "the little Reif").

Another excellent text is vol. V of Landau&Lifshitz.

 

[The Bill]

Reif should be good as a direct reference. If you want an undergraduate text as an additional companion, I recommend Schroeder. Sears and Salinger is okay also. Those are the only two I have good opinions of based on my experience. There may be many other good texts for intuition and review of the basics.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Foundations of Statistical and Thermal Physics

Do you mean "Foundations" or "Fundamentals"? Reif wrote several books - at least two famous ones - and "Fundamentals" is one of them.

 

[KCook3824]

Do you mean "Foundations" or "Fundamentals"? Reif wrote several books - at least two famous ones - and "Fundamentals" is one of them.

Yes you're right. I wasn't right in front of the book when I posted this and got that wrong. Thanks for the correction.

 

[KCook3824]

Sounds like Reif is one of the better texts. I should have thought about Landau and Lifshitz, and will take a look at that as well. Thanks everyone

 

[Vanadium 50]

Reif is a good book.
I'm not sure if the Landau and Lifschitz book is actually Landau and Lifschitz. It may be Lifschitz and Pitaevskii. As a a general rule, L&L is more a guide for working through the material than a book where you can look up things that are maybe unclear from other books.

 

[vanhees71]

I was referring to vol. V of Landau&Lifshitz. The 3rd edition was revised and enlarged by Lifshitz and Pitaevsky. As is characteristic for this textbook series it comes straight to the point and emphasizes the physical concepts. I also like Reif's "Fundamentals of statistical and thermal pysics", but I find it sometimes a bit long-winded.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I find it sometimes a bit long-winded.

And I find Landau a bit terse.

"One can easily show"...yeah, if your name is Landau. Mere mortals require a ream of paper and a free afternoon.

One of the statements in QM/Vol. III is "the natural coordinate system for solving the hydrogen atom is"...wait for it..."parabolic." Landau is 100% right here, but for someone just starting out, the reasons why - had Landau chosen to give any - are obscure mumbo-jumbo: For beginners "because SO(4) breaks to two SU(2)s" is not helpful, nor is "first you need to think about the analogue of the Runge-Lenz vector".

"Good to know" is not the same as "a good place to start."

 

[vanhees71]

I also don't think that LL3 is a good book for a first encounter with QT. Historically the first solution for the Hydrogen atom indeed used the SO(4) symmetry and the Runge-Lenz vector. It's by Pauli, using Born-Jordan-Heisenberg matrix mechanics ;-). Not that Pauli was a "mere mortal".

 

[Frabjous]

These might also be of use

Callen Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics
Becker Theory of Heat
Pippard Classical Thermodynamics