The lecture notes are from an earlier version of this course, but still correspond to the topics covered in this version.
| SES # | TOPICS | LECTURE NOTES |
|---|---|---|
| I. Thermodynamics | ||
| L1 | Fundamental Definitions, The Zeroth Law, The First Law | Lecture Note 1 (PDF) |
| L2 | The Second Law, Carnot Engines and Thermodynamic Temperature, Entropy | Lecture Note 2 (PDF) |
| L3 | Approach to Equilibrium and Thermodynamic Potentials, Useful Mathematical Results | Lecture Note 3 (PDF) |
| L4 | Stability Conditions, The Third Law | Lecture Note 4 (PDF) |
| II. Probability | ||
| L5 | General Definitions, One Random Variable, Some Important Probability Distributions | Lecture Note 5 (PDF) |
| L6 | Many Random Variables, Sums of Random Variables and the Central Limit Theorem, Rules for Large Numbers, Information, Entropy, and Estimation | Lecture Note 6 (PDF) |
| III. Kinetic Theory of Gases | ||
| L7 | General Definitions, Liouville's Theorem | Lecture Note 7 (PDF) |
| L8 | The Bogoliubov-Born-Green-Kirkwood-Yvon Hierarchy, The Boltzmann Equation | Lecture Note 8 (PDF) |
| L9 | The H-Theorem and Irreversibility, Equilibrium Properties | Lecture Note 9 (PDF) |
| L10 | Conservation Laws | Lecture Note 10 (PDF) |
| L11 | Zeroth Order Hydrodynamics, First Order Hydrodynamics | Lecture Note 11 (PDF) |
| IV. Classical Statistical Mechanics | ||
| L12 | General Definitions, The Microcanonical Ensemble, Two-Level Systems | Lecture Note 12 (PDF) |
| L13 | The Ideal Gas, Mixing Entropy and Gibbs' Paradox, The Canonical Ensemble | Lecture Note 13 (PDF) |
| L14 | Examples, The Gibbs Canonical Ensemble, The Grand Canonical Ensemble | Lecture Note 14 (PDF) |
| V. Interacting Particles | ||
| L15 | The Cumulant Expansion | Lecture Note 15 (PDF) |
| L16 | The Cluster Expansion | Lecture Note 16 (PDF) |
| L17 | The Second Virial Coefficient and Van der Waals Equation, Breakdown of the Van der Waals Equation, Mean Field Theory of Condensation | Lecture Note 17 (PDF) |
| L18 | Variational Methods, Corresponding States, Critical Point Behavior | Lecture Note 18 (PDF) |
| VI. Quantum Statistical Mechanics | ||
| L19 | Mean field theory of condensation, Corresponding states, Critical point behavior (from L17 & L18) | Lecture Note 19 (PDF) |
| L20 | Dilute Polyatomic Gases, Vibrations of a Solid, Black-body Radiation | Lecture Note 20 (PDF) |
| L21 | Quantum Microstates, Quantum Macrostates | Lecture Note 21 (PDF) |
| VII. Ideal Quantum Gases | ||
| L22 | Hilbert Space of Identical Particles | Lecture Note 22 (PDF) |
| L23 | Canonical Formulation, Grand Canonical Formulation | Lecture Note 23 (PDF) |
| L24 | The Degenerate Fermi Gas | Lecture Note 24 (PDF) |
| L25 | The Degenerate Bose Gas | Lecture Note 25 (PDF) |
| L26 | Superfluid He4 | Lecture Note 26 (PDF) |