Customer Reviews

An Introduction to Thermal Physics

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

This is one the best physics book I've seen. Like in all physics books, it is expected that you understand the preceding text before you gain ability to do a problem 'quickly'. But in this book understanding actually happens because, unlike most books, the whole book is written intuitively. The tone of the writing is nice also; you wiil NOT find the unnecessary 'of course' and 'obvious' sprinkled throughout, which were are a common occurrence in more annoying texts. The laws of thermodyanmics, especially the 2nd, are clearely illustrated in fair amounts 'theoretical' detail. For the more 'everyday' aspects chapter 4 and the thermodynmics parts of my freshman physics textbook were useful; in fact, its a good idea to read the thermo part of the freshman physics book while or before reading Ch. 1 of this book). The arguments and estimates made to motivate and justify various things throughout the book were, in my opinion, clear and reasonable. Problems are all do-able and a majority of them interesting once the text is understood (which takes some time and energy). Most of the problems have a number or an expression as an answer, it would've been nice to have the answers in the back. Who would it hurt? If a student is willing to spend his/her time and energy until he/she has the right answer they should be given the opportunity to have the 'pleasure of finding things out' (from a title of one of R.Feynman's book). I liked all chapters of the book, but I did feel that Ch.5 is a bit too long. It is an enjoyable and intuitive physics book.

I'm in my third year of physics, and so far this was probably the book I enjoyed the most. The writing is very good and at times humorous, the build-up of the book is okay, and the explanations are easy to understand and most of the time pretty detailed. Also, the writer does a good job of 'getting inside the student's head'. Plenty of examples, a joy from start to finish. The only disadvantage is that the problems do not have any answers in the back of the book. For the rest, I enjoyed every second of it.

While a good theoretical understanding can be obtained from this book, the lack of many worked problems in the book and the absence of any solutions in the back presents a real problem for any self-study. You must have a knowledgeable professor who can work out a lot of examples in class. Unfortunately I do not have a good professor, so I've had to pick up other texts to solve my difficulties. I'd avoid this book unless it's absolutely required for a class, and even then I would suggest taking very good notes in class to supplement the book.

First, many of the answers to the text's problems can be found either online or are known implicitly! The problems themselves are kept interesting by relating to many fields and not being as dated (as another has mentioned, some computer/computational problems are offered--the author uses Excel but Mathematica, Maple, Origin, or other software is easily substituted) as other texts (especially in regard to Statistical Physics). The author gives links to good websites and references other solid texts for those wanting a more in depth or advanced discussion of a topic. The topics in the book are presented lucid and succinctly. An online errata is easily downloaded, though the corrigenda are not many. As mentioned, this text is very transportable. The author also notes that most of the layout for the book was done on his own computer thus keeping the price very reasonable compared to the bloated prices of texts Physics majors are accustomed. I think this text is very usable and well priced for a first year course in Thermal Physics. I also believe the author has put much thought in constructing this book to be used by students rather than to showoff his own knowledge or to be readable only to Physics Professors.

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.

Having taken classes that have used both this and Kittel and Kroemer I can easily recommend this over the former. Though K&K is considerably more thorough and will give you a deeper understanding if you're a patient reader, Schroeder's book gives you a more better intuitive feel for the topic. You may sacrifice some mathematical rigor with Schroeder, but the increased comfort with the subject will allow you to feel comfortable discussing the topic and give you the confidence to continue further study. I also feel the more qualitative approach to such a "magical" field as statistical mechanics is better for the student's understanding, rather than getting bogged down for several chapters on counting and general probability.

This is the best introduction to thermal physics books I've been able to find. In my opinion this book stands out because it has a lot more conceptual stuff as opposed to equations after equation as in, say, Kittel. This is something I prefer in an introductory book since I'm more concerned about gaining a solid basis of the topics theoretically and can easily fill in the mathematics later. I really like the style he writes the book in and is a very easy read. I do agree that it would be nice if the exercises had answers but luckily a lot of them aren't that hard and you can normally work out the answer yourself.

We only used the first five chapters in our course so I can't speak for the stat mech section. However quickly browsing through the later sections it seems to me that it is more conceptual based then equation deriving. This is also something I like and I know that I'll keep it at my side when I take a stat mech class since I found most of those books to be equation after equation with minimal discussion.

This text seems to be one of the standard thermal physics texts. The book is fairly comprehensive, as it covers both classical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, but given the books short length, each topic only gets a small amount of coverage. One of the books positive aspects is that the derivations are easy to follow and the use of advanced mathematics is kept to a minimum; however this is also a drawback. In many places the author throws away and disregards factors with little rigourous justification - for me this makes the results less beleivable and less satisfying. A peculiarity of this text is that the author writes strictly in the first person (which is bizzare for a science text), which I find to be a little unsettling (I prefer the classical 'we'). After having read this book and taken a course on the subject, I have a better understanding of the mathematical/statistical underpinnings of thermal behaviors, but I am still not fully convinced, nor am I fully convinced of the second law. For those of you just starting out with thermodynamics/stat mech I recommend this book for its simplicity (good for self study) and for the diversity of the topics it presents.

note1: I give this between three and four stars

note2: I responded to this book more positively than some classmates - the books intro. claims that calc I,II are sufficient along with an introductory physics course... I happen to think calc I-III would be more adequate as thermodynamics is inherently multivariate... a very cursory knowledge of ordinary differential equations couldn't hurt either.

Schroeder sets the mark for readability with this undergraduate physics text. This was my favorite among all my undergraduate texts; by far the easiest to understand and most enjoyable to read. His explanations are clever and witty. I enjoyed his lucid introduction to combinatorics in statistical mechanics. Schroeder gets an A+ in defining abstract ideas such as enthalpy, partition functions, and intensive vs. extensive quantities. On the flip side, the organization is loose, and there aren't enough worked out examples in the latter chapters. I highly recommend this book to professors who want students to actually read and learn from the text.