Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics, 2nd Edition

Book Description

The only text to cover both thermodynamic and statistical mechanics--allowing students to fully master thermodynamics at the macroscopic level. Presents essential ideas on critical phenomena developed over the last decade in simple, qualitative terms. This new edition maintains the simple structure of the first and puts new emphasis on pedagogical considerations. Thermostatistics is incorporated into the text without eclipsing macroscopic thermodynamics, and is integrated into the conceptual framework of physical theory.

Customer Reviews:

Wrong Edition Sent.......2007-09-24

Although the edition was correct, the book was a paperback when I specifically paid for hardbound. Even more frustrating was the fact that it was not eligible for return.

Key to undestanf statistical physics.......2006-10-26

The postulational approach is really great. This book tooks away all the question I had about the connection between thermodynamics and statistical physics. I think it's a good idea to read Fermi's thermodynamics also. To see how smart one can be when using thermodynamics.

nice book, nice service.......2005-09-16

I am both satisfied with amazon service and with the book.

Excellent.......2005-03-30

Beautiful simple straightforward approach to thermodynamics. The postulates are well explained and the use of the axioms is highlighted. Challenging questions make this book a joy to use, great a student text as well as a reference.

Insightful Postulational Approach to Thermodynamics.......2004-05-19

Why did I buy an older thermodynamics text, one first published in 1960? I trusted the advice of earlier reviewers.
They say: 1) The best treatment of classical thermodynamics that I have seen. The chapters on phase transitions are excellent and the mechanical model used to illustrate critical phenomena is brilliant. 2) It is far better than most books on the subject. 3) I think this book has no competition as a text in thermodynamics. It is the ideal preparation for a book like Landau's Statistical Physics. 4) The overview of the fundamentals of thermodynamics is without rival. 5) I think this book is a great option if you feel disappointed with the standard treatment of thermodynamics.

A few reviewers argued that Callen's text was less suitable for engineering students (too few heat-mechanical energy conversion problems) and chemical engineers (too few chemical mixture problems).

My trust was not misplaced. Thermodynamics, an Introduction to the Physical Theories of Equilibrium Thermostatics and Irreversible Thermodynamics, is an exceptional text. I give it five stars.

H. B. Callen offers a fascinating and insightful postulational approach to thermodynamics rather than the conventional inductive approach. He targets first year graduate students and advanced undergraduates; however, even readers proficient with advanced thermodynamics should find Callen's approach stimulating.

The text has three primary sections: General Principles of Classical Thermodynamics (200 pages), Representative Applications (65 pages), and Fluctuations and Irreversible Thermodynamics (50 pages). An extensive appendix, some 50 pages, offers a useful review of pertinent mathematics and other relevant topics. Answers are not provided to the chapter problems.

Interspersed throughout are brief chapters that review useful mathematical techniques. I appreciated the discussions of the Euler equation, the Legendre transformations, the extremum principle in the Legendre transformed representations, and the Maxwell relations (not the Maxwell EM equations). Callen provides useful tools like a thermodynamic mnemonic diagram (first introduced by Max Born) and associated procedures for reducing the formal manipulation of partial derivates to "a simple recipe".

Callen's text has been widely used. I reviewed the 1960 first edition, eighteenth printing. A second edition published in 1984 is easier to find and is often used today as a supplementary text.

Thanks again for the advice from previous reviewers.

An Introduction to Statistical Thermodynamics

Average customer rating:

great handbook
An Introduction to Statistical Thermodynamics- Terrel L.Hill
A nice companion to McQuarrie's text
Reliable Treatise
Excelent first book on the subject

An Introduction to Statistical Thermodynamics
Terrell L. Hill
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486652424

Book Description

Part I deals with principles of quantum statistical mechanics. Part II examines systems composed of independent molecules or other independent subsystems. Part III considers systems of interacting molecules, and Part IV covers quantum statistics and includes sections on Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics, photon gas, and free-volume theories of quantum liquids.

Customer Reviews:

great handbook.......2007-09-30

i'm a student of applied chemistry and this book has everything you need too know as undergraduate of statistical thermodynamics

An Introduction to Statistical Thermodynamics- Terrel L.Hill.......2005-08-31

An excellent text book for Physical Chemist who want to get sound footing in Statistical Thermodynamics.Inorder to really get a good view of the basics of statistical mechanics the reader really needs to spend an adequate amount of time in digesting the contents of the initial chapter. However, after spending some amount of time in reading those initial chapters, one can grasp the latter parts of the book in a quite interesting fashion.In my opinion, this book is a must for those who want to master the statstical thermodynamics. Infact, one would be really amazed at the standard of the book considering the fact that it is reasonably old. No new standard books on ' Statistical Mechanics' can provide such an adequate foundations as it in this book. I would strongly recommend this book along with the other book 'Statistical Mechanics' by the same author.
Sasisanker Padmanabhan

A nice companion to McQuarrie's text.......2005-07-02

I thought this was a terriable book by itself, but makes for a nice companion when reading through McQuarrie's book. McQuarrie skimps out on some of the explanations and instead leaves it to the reader to figure it out for themselves by solving his problems at the end of the chapter. One can usually find the answers (or at least some hints) within this book.

Reliable Treatise.......2004-05-12

Written in 1960 and revised in 1986 this is a general treatise on
stat-thermo in the tradition of Tolman and McQuarrie. I have a well
used copy on my desk, bought originally as a textbook for a graduate
course - probably the cheapest textbook I ever bought at $12.95.

The first chapter derives the ensembles from the quantum perspective.
This has the advantage of generality and the disadvantage that
it requires some rudimentary knowledge of quanta and is less
expedient for the scientist who is only concerned with classical
stat-mech.

Once the foundations are laid, the book is divided into
applications to non-interacting and interacting systems. In the
latter category is the virial expansion for imperfect gases. This
derivation makes an unnecessary effort to introduce a relative
activity. The derivation in Jackson's book is more transparent
and shorter without sacrificing rigor. The Mayer expansion for
hard spheres is treated in useful detail.

Chapter 18 includes a good description of the Debye-Hueckel theory
of electrolytes. The derivation of the Flory-Huggins theory of
polymer solutions in Chapter 21 is excellent - more concise and
effortless than all others that I have seen. Chapter 14 covers the
solution of the one-dimensional Ising magnet but I still have trouble
understanding this one. The appendices are useful and include
the maximum term method and method of undetermined multipliers
which are the cornerstone of the fundamental theorems.

Excelent first book on the subject.......2000-12-27

Hill presents the fundamental problems on the subject and methods to work these problems. Thanks to Dover you can have this book as a second source on class or for self learning. It has the basic fundamentals before you go to McQuarrie Stat. Mech. Excelent for Phys. Chemists approaching the subject

Average customer rating:

Fantastic First Book
Good Stuff
Good
comprehensive book
Best book available at this level

An Introduction to Thermal Physics
Daniel V. Schroeder
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0201380277

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic First Book.......2007-07-27

This book is a great introduction to thermal physics for a physicist, and a fantastic book for chemists who found physical chemistry hand-waving. This books wants you to understand what's going on more than anything. Very self-teachable, that's how I did it. It is on the easy side, and the problems are relatively simple, but if you want an introduction, this is it. Helps with the conceptual understanding better than any other thermodynamics book I've ever read (all physical chemistry books are written by people not able to communicate or don't really understand thermodynamics, just memorize). Stat mechanics in it is a little weak, but still a good introduction.

Good Stuff.......2007-02-20

I have this book for an undergrad Intro to Thermal Physics class. I think it's great. The author takes a mixed approach and varies between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. I don't find this annoying. It's nice to see how they are interrelated. Schroeder also reveals the depth of thermal physics and the large variety of areas it covers.

It's valid criticism that there are not many examples and the problems can be very challenging. Some answers in the back of the book would be nice. It is not a book that is for the self-teacher, but with a good professor it's very nice. Finally, the price is amazingly low. If only more texbooks were this cheap!

\m/ \m/

Good.......2007-01-08

I am a physics, math,and biology major; minoring in chemistry. The book is written very well and the concepts are explained very well throughout the book.

comprehensive book.......2006-11-10

I like the book al lot, the writes has an excellent view on how to explain the physics step by step. Of course you will need some basic knowledge of calculus (integrals, differentials). What I dislike about the book is that for some of the problems included to practise your skills you need to estimate some values which makes it difficult to check your answer (when you only get a number to compare it with). This, and the fact that the answers to the problems are not in the book (you probably need to buy some other book for it or so). This makes it impossible to check you answers.

Best book available at this level.......2006-09-06

This is best text on Statistical Mechanics and Thermo available at the advanced undergrad level. None of the other texts at this level can compete: Reif contains eveything but doesn't distinguish between important ideas and unimportant details. Kittel and Kroemer is too terse. Baierlein is too long-winded and idiosyncratic. Schroeder's text strikes just the right level: the big ideas are clearly explained and well-motivated. I like the order of presentation. The math is at the right level, the problems are excellent. There is even some humor. I have only two (minor) complaints: 1) the derivation of the entropy of an ideal gas involves some uncertainty-principle-hand-waving when a straight-forward counting of particle-in-a-box states would have done the job. 2) There is little or no discussion of transport properties: diffusion, thermal conductitivy, viscosity, and the like. If you don't like this book, then you won't like the others on this subject.

Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics

Average customer rating:

Pretty good service
Ever wonder why energy flows from a hot body to a cooler one?
Good reference book
Caltech Graduate Student
Only modern stat mech book

Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics
David Chandler
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195042778

Book Description

Leading physical chemist David Chandler takes a new approach to statistical mechanics to provide the only introductory-level work on the modern topics of renormalization group theory, Monte Carlo simulations, time correlation functions, and liquid structure. The author provides compact summaries of the fundamentals of this branch of physics and discussions of many of its traditional elementary applications, interspersed with over 150 exercises and microcomputer programs.

Customer Reviews:

Pretty good service.......2007-02-17

The book cover is in worse condition than I expected, but the contents are all there, and it came within a week of ordering.

Ever wonder why energy flows from a hot body to a cooler one?.......2006-02-04

I used this book while taking the course for which this book was designed, Prof. Chandler's stat mech course for first year graduate students.

I agree with the reviewer who wrote that this book avoids a lot of filler that can distort the main thrust of the material at hand.

I disagree with the reviewer who wrote that this is not the book for a beginner. I used this book having studied undergrad p-chem but essentially no stat mech. Being a concise text, one must read carefully to extract the point of each paragraph. I sometimes found myself re-reading certain sections a few times in order to understand them. The abundant prose should be evidence that the author is trying to provide a physical picture to improve the scientific intuition of the reader.

This doesn't mean the book isn't for a beginner. It just means what you should already know: you will not learn stat mech by skimming any text just once with a pint of beer in your hand.

I constantly return to this book for review of thermo and stat mech concepts. For my grad qualifying exams I mostly used McQuarrie for general p-chem overview, but switched right back to IMSM for thermo and stat mech review.

If you're looking for a reference book with every possible stat mech problem worked out to help with your problem sets, this is not it. If you want to understand stat mech this book is the first step.

Good reference book.......2001-05-23

A clear, concise explanation of statistical mechanics. Some people may complain about the "concise" part--in many cases, mathematical exercises are left as exercises to the student. However, this practice allows the reader to really understand the material by doing, not just reading. I learned stat mech for the first time from this book, and only examined other texts (mcquarrie or hill) afterwards.

Caltech Graduate Student.......2000-03-02

This was a great book. It covered the important material and left out all of the extra garbage that most books carry on for pages about. The presentation was done using clear mathematics and modern, easily followed notation. The book is short making it practical to actually read the entire book if you are extremely busy. We used the book in conjunction with Hill. I don't recommend Hill because it is hard to follow.

Only modern stat mech book.......1998-06-22

The best part of this book is that it is modern. You have chapters on Monte Carlo simulations, the Ising model, and more. You don't get long chapters on the partition function of an ideal gas, for example. The bad part about this book is that it is not immediately transparent if you're reading stat mech for the first time. I like it more the more I know about stat mech, but it's not a good beginner's book, and I think it's better to have another book with it - maybe Hill or McQuarrie - since it's not really that long either. Still, recommended (get the soln. manual too) with these caveats.

Statistical Mechanics: A Concise Introduction for Chemists

Average customer rating:

Excellent Introduction

Statistical Mechanics: A Concise Introduction for Chemists
B. Widom
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521009669

Book Description

This is an introduction to statistical mechanics, intended to be used either in an undergraduate physical chemistry course or by beginning graduate students with little undergraduate background in the subject. It assumes familiarity with thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, the kinetic theory of gases, quantum mechanics and spectroscopy, at the level at which these subjects are normally treated in undergraduate physical chemistry. Highly illustrated with numerous exercises and worked solutions, it provides a concise, up-to-date treatise of statistical mechanics and is ideally suited to use in one semester courses.

Download Description

Statistical mechanics is the theoretical apparatus used to study the properties of macroscopic systems - systems made up of many atoms or molecules - and relates those properties to the system's microscopic constitution. This book is an introduction to statistical mechanics, intended to be used either by advanced undergraduates or by beginning graduate students. The first chapter deals with statistical thermodynamics and aims to quickly derive the most commonly used formulas in the subject. The remainder of the book then illustrates the application of these formulas in traditional areas such as the ideal gas and less traditional areas such as the quantum ideal gas. Highly illustrated with numerous exercises and worked solutions, it provides a concise, up-to-date treatise of statistical mechanics ideal for use on an 8-12 lecture course.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Introduction.......2006-09-01

While looking for a suitable textbook for a one-semester course on Statistical Mechanics, I found this little gem by Prof. Widom, a recognized authority in the field. It was a pleasure to read, clear, all the classical topics well explained, very understandable.
Several excellent textbook on the subject are available, but none conveys so much in so little space (THE SPACE you have available in an undergraduate lecture course), yet with no compromise on rigour or clarity. At the beginning, I was a little uneasy by the choice of skipping a discussion of the (difficult) foundations, jumping directly to the Boltzmann distribution as a starting point. Now I totally agree with it, it is the best for a first introduction, and if time is left (rarely) one can profitably add a discussion on fundations at the end of the course.

Solutions Manual for Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics

Average customer rating:

There are more answers online!!
One of the best
soso

Solutions Manual for Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics
David Chandler , and David Wu
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195058895

Book Description

Professor Chandler and a colleague, David Wu, have prepared a solutions manual to Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics (Oxford 1987), to be used as an ancillary to the text. The instructive numerical work in the manual is an important supplement, because the material can only be learned by tackling the exercises. Methods of solution are provided for a majority of the problems.

Customer Reviews:

There are more answers online!!.......2006-09-14

This manual provides solutions to select problems only. I recommend the internet over buying this manual; you'll find more solutions there. Even Chandler recommends using other sources at the beginning of the text book.

One of the best.......2002-11-16

This book is really one of the better book on statistical physics. It is short and concise but it is impressive the amount of physics discussed in this book!
And the presentation is really modern.

soso.......1998-06-22

Don't get your hopes up too much. Not all of the problems are solved. The problems that are solved are solved OK but not always in the best way. Still, I'd buy this book all over again, since "Intro to stat mech" by Chandler is pretty cheap to begin with. Just think of it as paying for 1 book.

Average customer rating:

An Introduction to Statistical Thermodynamics
R. P. H. Gasser , and W. G. Richards
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Statistical thermodynamics plays a vital linking role between quantum theory and chemical thermodynamics, yet students often find the subject unpalatable.

In this updated version of a popular text, the authors overcome this by emphasising the concepts involved, in particular demystifying the partition function. They do not get bogged down in the mathematical niceties that are essential for a profound study of the subject but which can confuse the beginner. Strong emphasis is placed on the physical basis of statistical thermodynamics and the relations with experiment. After a clear exposition of the distribution laws, partition functions, heat capacities, chemical equilibria and kinetics, the subject is further illuminated by a discussion of low-temperature phenomena and spectroscopy.

The coverage is brought right up to date with a chapter on computer simulation and a final section which ranges beyond the narrow limits usually associated with student texts to emphasise the common dependence of macroscopic behaviour on the properties of constituent atoms and molecules.

Book Description

Statistical physics is a core component of most undergraduate (and some post-graduate) physics degree courses. It is primarily concerned with the behavior of matter in bulk-c. Ultimately, it seeks to uncover the laws governing random processes, such as the snow on your TV screen. This essential new textbook guides the reader quickly and critically through a statistical view of the physical world, including a wide range of physical applications to illustrate the methodology. It moves from basic examples to more advanced topics, such as broken symmetry and the Bose-Einstein equation. To accompany the text, the author, a renowned expert in the field, has written a Solutions Manual/Instructor's Guide, available free of charge to lecturers who adopt this book for their courses. Introduction to Statistical Physics will appeal to students and researchers in physics, applied mathematics and statistics.

Customer Reviews:

Unuseable and filled with errors.......2005-02-26

This is a cut up version of Huang's Statistical Mechanics book intended for an undergraduate audience. The book is filled with mathmatical errors (or a lot of misprints) and grammatical errors. The chapters are only 3-4 pages on average with absolutely no insight or examples. The problems range from very easy to out of the scope of the book when you go from chapter to chapter. If I could have rated this book a negative value I would have. If you are looking for a starting point for Statistical Mechanics I would look somewhere else because this book is completely useless as far as I am concerned.

An Introduction to Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

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An Introduction to Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
Keith Stowe
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521865573

Book Description

This introductory textbook for standard undergraduate courses in thermodynamics has been completely rewritten. Starting with an overview of important quantum behaviours, the book teaches students how to calculate probabilities, in order to provide a firm foundation for later chapters. It introduces the ideas of classical thermodynamics and explores them both in general and as they are applied to specific processes and interactions. The remainder of the book deals with statistical mechanics - the study of small systems interacting with huge reservoirs. The changes to this second edition have been made after more than 10 years classroom testing and student feedback. Each topic ends with a boxed summary of ideas and results, and every chapter contains numerous homework problems, covering a broad range of difficulties. Answers are given to odd numbered problems, and solutions to even problems are available to instructors at www.cambridge.org/9780521865579.

Introduction to Thermodynamics, the Kinetic Theory of Gases, and Statistical Mechanics. (Second Edition)

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Introduction to Thermodynamics, the Kinetic Theory of Gases, and Statistical Mechanics. (Second Edition)
Francis Weston Sears
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H4MOUI

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