Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics (McGraw-Hill Series in Fundamentals of Physics)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My first exposure to stat mech was through Callen's book "Thermodynamics and Thermostatistics" in my junior year of college. I hated the book, and decided right then that I never ever wanted to become involved with condensed matter physics. However, I needed to know stat mech for my grad school qualifying exams, and not wanting to go back to Callen, I picked up Reif's book, following a professor's recommendation. What a difference. The clarity of presentation in this book is matched only by Landau's texts. You'll be amazed when doing the problems by just how much interesting physics you can do with just the fundamental relation of thermodynamics and the canonical formalism. Don't be turned off by the length of this book (>600 pages); the reason for this is not overly wordy descriptions (i.e, Griffiths), but simply huge amount of material presented (Griffiths would take over 1000 pages to chat about the same amount of material).

Perhaps the best praise I can give this book is that not only did it teach me stat mech, it really sparked my interest in the field of condensed matter physics, enough to contemplate my choosing this as a research topic in grad school.

Reif reads like thermodynamics is a brand new result and he has written the first giant paper on it. Not only does this book cover every area under the Sun, from the law of mass action to kinetic theory, but he develops each topic in a formal way, with logical consistency and that curious, gray-haired insight.

I continually look to Reif when more "advanced" books fumble explanations. With the firm conceptual grounding I get there, I can then intuit what other authors are trying to convey. How many astute readers of other thermodynamics textbooks have any idea when Boltzmann's canonical distribution can be used? Or who know the difference between this and Boltzmann's equation?

If you are an instructor, the illuminating end-of-chapter problems will be a boon. If you are a student, they will also be, yet less appreciated likely. No matter who you are, if you want to really know thermo and stat mech and are willing to _think_, then buy this book before some competing, flashy, colorized textbook drives it out of print.

Never mind that this book was published in the mid '60s (before I was even born); if you must choose one book to learn from, choose this one. It is so concise, so well thought out that I have yet to encounter a more instructive text on the subject. It contains a fabulous overview of statistical and thermal physics, and -even though the book contains quite a lot of material- I regret that the author (quote) "resisted the tempation to include applications of Onsager's reciprocity relations" and other irreversible phenomena. I used to teach physics and chemistry, and I must say that books of this quality just don't seem to be written these days. Given the inherent subtlety of its subject matter and the problems many students have grasping it I therefore strongly recommend using this book to study from.

1. Since I didn't see this book in print on Amazon I searched on Google and found a place called Waveland Press that seems to have legitimate copies for sale: just search on ISBN 1-57766-612-7 and it should pop up.

2. My personal comments on the book
I am a physical chemist who managed to get through college and graduate school without taking a serious course in thermodynamics. For some reason I never warmed up to that subject and I avoided it like the plague. When I was at Berkeley they offered an option for first year grad students to "test out" of the mandatory thermodynamics course. By cramming from Callen I managed to pass that test and avoid learning my least favorite subject. While at Berkeley I took a 1-semester course on Statistical Mechanics taught from Pathria, and I didn't get much out of that either. I did, however, buy a copy of Reif's 1965 book while in grad school and used it as an occasional reference over the years, but without deep understanding. I promised one day to study it like a college student, and after 25 years I finally got around to it. I worked through the entire book, stopping at the end of each chapter to attempt most of the problems. I was very impressed with Reif's exposition and the quality of most of the problems. (The answers to selected problems at back of book are very cryptic and contain a few typos - I think ;) - but they were still extremely valuable to keep me on track.)

I was amused by Reif's comment in the Preface that "an author never finishes a book, he merely abandons it." While reading, I kept an eye out for what Reif might have been referring to when he wrote that comment. For sure, Ch. 14 did not work for me. I suspect that Reif would have done a major overhaul on Ch. 14 if he had done a second edition. Ch. 8 is also a little weak and seems rushed. I suspect this is another chapter Reif wanted to rewrite before he abandoned his project. Most of the other chapters are excellent. The intro to Ch. 10 (pp. 404-6 in my copy) is a beautiful example of clear exposition -- it made things I sort of knew already come into better focus. For a book that never saw a second edition, it is remarkably free of typos and errata. The author obviously put enormous care and effort into this textbook. It has stood the test of time well.
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If you are having problems warming up to thermodynamics, I also recommend the following three slender and inexpensive Dover books which I read before Reif as part of my penance:
1. H. C. van Ness, "Understanding Thermodynamics." [In Ch. 3 of this book van Ness captures precisely how I felt about thermo in college: "The problem in teaching thermodynamics is that the most difficult, the most confusing, and the least interesting material is presented first, and the early applications are usually at best trivial and at worst misleading."]
2. E. Fermi, "Thermodynamics." Only 155 pages, a few problems at the end of each chapter (much easier than Reif), very clearly presented, very few typos.
3. M. Planck, "Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics." I was surprised by how fun this book was to read, especially Lectures 2 and 6. (Lecture 2 forms a nice complement to Reif's Chapter 8, and Lecture 6 explains Planck's thought process leading up to the blackbody radiation formula and all the results that flow from it like magic. Lecture 6 also documents Planck's resistance to the photon concept as late as 1909: "J.J. Thompson inclines to the most radical view, as do J. Larmor, A. Einstein, and with him I. Stark, who even believe that the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a pure vacuum does not occur precisely in accordance with the Maxwellian field equations, but in definite energy quanta hv. I am of the opinion, on the other hand, that at present it is not necessary to proceed in so revolutionary a manner...")

One thing that distinguishes this book from the rest on stat mech is its emphasis on the physical content behind the equations. The author takes great pain to develop and elucidate, at every turn, a coherent physical picture for the edifice of statistical mechanics, in much the same style as the classic book by Tolman. However, if you are learning stat mech/thermo for the first time, you probably will be too busy familiarizing yourself with the equations to be able to appreciate the value of his explanations and motivations, which may just seem pointless rants. So, simply, if you are a newbie, try one of the more mediocre textbooks on stat mech, to learn the subject at a superficial level. Once you've mastered the more superficial stuff, you will come around to love this book, assuming that you are a reflective person.

I simply could not let the idiotic one-star "reviews" pass without comment. When I first taught a course using this book way back in 1974, I found it remarkably well written, well organized, and full of insight. My students--junior and senior physics majors-- enjoyed it and learned a lot from it, as their test papers demonstrated. (I did find it helpful to supplement Reif with R. Kubo's "Statistical Mechanics" (still available on Amazon, and in a reasonably priced paperback edition) which consists mainly of problems and solutions.) In fact, I was able to rely on their study of the text to such an extent that we covered (honestly covered, not skimmed) more than half the book in a 13-week term. The end-of-chapter problem sets are excellent; the problems are interesting and instructive. I haven't been as pleased with an upper-level physics text since then (and I've run the gamut from Marion to Griffiths).

That said, I must point out a) that this is probably not a good vehicle for self-study, and b) it is much too difficult for recent crops of students, who lack the necessary attention span, patience, and willingness to engage in careful analysis. (The fact that they used introductory physics texts full of superfluous color photos and highlighted "word bites" means that they are not ready for Reif's elegant, no-nonsense exposition.) But none of the less-demanding statistical physics texts I've used in the intervening years comes close to Reif's flair for expository writing and ability to emphasize essential points.

This book is all business. There are two disclaimers I must make before continuing, though: 1) You ABSOLUTELY MUST be fairly well versed in thermal physics and basic statistics before you can read this book without hitches and 2) In the intro, it is stated that this book is useful for advanced undergraduate course in thermodynamics, which is false. I cannot conceive of a class of undergraduates that possesses the macro-level knowledge of thermal physics necessary to handle this text, as it is one with an undeniable statical mechanical slant.

The aforementioned caveats aside, it is difficult for me to imagine a better text for a first-year graduate level course in thermodynamics. The book flows well. I found myself flying through the chapters. The problems seem difficult, but I think that has to do with the style fot he questions, because, by the time you are half way through the book, the problems seem to get easier.

My single complaint about the book was that there is too much math in some areas where more words are needed. In particular, I think there needed to be more explanation given when discussing the differential equations associated with C-sub v and C-sub p. It got to the point where my professor was confused. This is possibly the only error in the book, as far as I am aware, but, then again, it might not have been an error. This book is, otherwise, a conceptually outstanding book.

What I found interesting about this book, since the thermal physics were represented from an entirely statistical perspective, I realized that the thermodynamics of the 19th century through the turn of the 20th century are philosophically reducible to the modern conception of thermodynamics from a wholly statistical point of view. I thought that this was very interesting from a philosophy of physics standpoint.

Great book!

I had used this book for two statistical mechanics courses that I had taken: one a graduate level physics course that I had taken as an undergraduate, and one a graduate level metallurgical thermodynamics course that I took as a graduate student. Reif served me well for both of these courses in so far as having provided me with a well-paced development of a statistical approach to thermodynamics. From the point of view of metallurgical thermodynamics, however, this book is not really suitable, as there is no development of solution theory. For metallurgical solution theory the student should read Gaskell:Introduction to Metallurgical Thermodynamics (McGraw-Hill series in materials science and engineering). This omission of solution theory is not really a failing of the book, however, which was clearly not intended for a course in metallurgical thermodynamics--it has more to do with the point of view of the professor who taught metallurgical thermodynamics in my department. Reif does have three good chapters on transport theory, however, including the development of the Boltzmann equation. I have found these chapters on transport theory to have been useful in my research work.

I'm a junior in college using this textbook for my introductory thermodynamics class, and I think it's a pretty good book. It's well organized and goes through very clear explanations of the material, usually providing examples applying the ideas in the sections. Best of all, it provides a heckuva lot of references you can pursue if you're interested.

This is hands-down the best thermal physics book I know if you want to understand thermal physics at a deep level. This is probably an undesirable book if you only want to apply laws written by others; this is meant to give a firm, complete, general understanding of thermal physics in all applications.

I concede that it *may* be too hard for a first course. It *may* be too abstract for a first-timer. I am unsure, as I read this after reading two other standard textbooks. I would argue that thermal physics suffers from the worst textbooks in general; this is one of the bright spots amidst some rather bad thermal books.

It does not give cheap cop-outs of how to define things; it does not evade what the definitions of terms are. This is unusual for thermal physics, in my opinion. The arguments are completely pedagogical in nature, as well as rigorous. This is a rare event to accomplish.

As a consequence of this book, I can meaningfully describe what temperature is and isn't, especially given that most people can only define temperature based on ideal gases (if you think temperature is a measure of average molecular velocity, as I had been taught for so long, you have been misled...this only applies to ideal gases). Few people are able to understand, let alone explain well, what macroscopic thermal functions are and are not in terms of the microscopic.

I return to this book continually.