Seeking advice on Grad level Thermo/Stat Mech course

[kwmashburn]

Greetings. I am starting my first year of grad work and I’m looking for some advice regarding preparations for a graduate level Thermo/Stat Mech course. Other than about a three week overview of thermodynamics in my freshman modern physics course in the spring of 2006, I have no other academic background in the area. Could anyone provide some insight into the most important topics and where I should focus my review studies??
Many thanks.

 

[FactorsOf2]

Time permitting, you should work through one of the standard undergrad stat mech books. Discussion of good texts here: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=10004

I am also taking 1st year grad stat mech in the fall and I figured out what the required texts were then went ahead and bought them already - I plan on spending some time browsing before the class starts.

 

[alan2]

An excellent undergrad text not mentioned in the link above is Gould and Tobochnik. It is new (2010), but quickly gaining popularity. It is very intuitive, rather complete for an intro text, and comes with the author's website which runs very nice Java simulations of problems throughout the book.