Statistical Physics: Discovering Condensed Matter & Solid State

[theFuture]

Lately I've been reading a lot of statistical physics and I really enjoy it. I was curious what sorts of physics more study in this area would lead me to. Condensded matter? Solid state?

 

[Dr Transport]

Both...

 

[baffledMatt]

You can now start to study the wonderful world of phase transitions and critical phenomena. Much of this comes under condensed matter physics, but it extends far beyond.

You should check out something like "Statistical mechanics of Phase Transitions" by J.M. Yeomans. This is a good introductory text. It is also common to begin studying statistical physics through percolation theory as this introduces the methods and ideas without as much of the complicated mathematics. An excellent and highly recommended text is "Introduction to percolation theory" by Stauffer and Aharony. For more advanced stuff on condensed matter in general there is "Principles of condensed matter physics" by Chaikin and Lubensky which is one of the all-time classic texts of the field.

Out of interest, what statistical mechanics books have you been reading?

Matt

 

[Gokul43201]

Lately I've been reading a lot of statistical physics and I really enjoy it. I was curious what sorts of physics more study in this area would lead me to. Condensded matter? Solid state?

Yes, but you could also do stuff like bio-physics, polymer physics, etc. Also keep in mind that you can't do very much of condensed matter physics without an good understanding of quantum mechanics and electromagnetism.