Customer Reviews

Statistical Mechanics: A Set of Lectures (Frontiers in Physics)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a wonderful book written by one of the greatest teachers of physics on a subject matter often shrouded in mystery. I found it tremendously helpful in understanding many topics in condensed matter physics on a deeper, more conceptual level. The chapters on second quantization, superconductivity and superfluidity are especially illuminating, and the latter is far surperior in clarity than anything I have come across (which is perhaps not surprising considering Feymnman developed much of the theory himself). I highly recommend this book as a supplimentary text for any graduate-level Statistical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics or Solid State course you may be taking.

The Feynman Lectures on Statistical Mechanics contain a great deal of very useful information, and each page is full of solid work without bothering too much with unnecessary details. The book also covers all the bases very well, hitting plenty of good examples, such as spin waves, and the obligatory superconductivity chapter is a solid introduction.

My only complaint is that the ordering of the book is a little haphazard. I understand that it is difficult to include quantum and classical statistical mechanics in one continuous run, but the book seems to jump around a bit.

All this considered, the book is probably a must-buy for people interested in statistical physics, as it is one of the better general overview books available (I despise the Reif; it needs to be updated and completely rearranged), and, as an added bonus, you get to see the Onsager solution to the 2-D Ising model. Cheers!

Richard Feynman said:"What I cannot create, I do not understand!". I am really amazed by his unique style of doing physics: he always create anything from scratch, always has his unique point of view, even on an old problem. All I can say about Feynman is Genius!!!
This book is about Feynman's extraordinary viewpoint on statistical mechanics. I can bet that this is an unique S.M book.
but i don't think it's for beginner, I suggest you should finish a standard statistical mechanics course before you read this one.
I can not find suitable words to admire this great book, so I quit here, but in the end, I strongly recommend this book to all physicists, physics-major students!

when i was undergrad, i read Prof. Kerson Huang's stat mech. i think that book is good. everything is covered systematically, but everything is explained 'evenly'. if u r a careful reader, u still get the ideas of the essence, like partition function plays the central role of stat mech, etc.

now, i am reading feynman's book. it's totally diff from huang's. it's full of excitement. he put the principle of stat mech which is the relation b/w partition function and probability at the very beginning. all the other aspects in stat mech follow so straight forword and there are endless novel derivations in this book. i feel many of my previous understandings are interconnected by reading this book.

it's simply great, just like the other books written by feynman.

The equations are incomplete and it becomes very hard to read. Have tried on multiple devices. mathematical formatting is not complete. Very disappointing. Particularly the bras and kets.

Dear Readers

Everything you need is in this one very compact volume. Not that it contains all of physics. No. What it does contain and does convey is the sense of adventure and daring one needs to proceed in theoretical physics calculations.

He treats systems at first simply but then progresses at a very leisurely pace to give the total picture. That is First Classically then progressing to The Quantum Mechanical picture which has the hidden traps which contradict human intuition.

I like his metaphor "to nibble at problems". This is a great book.!
Other phrases he uses are also great and you can tell that the words in the book are almost verbatim. Like the Feynman lectures you get the drama here as well.

They should have filmed it....if they didn't....it would be marvelous to watch.!!

Best Regards

Southern Jameson West

Feynman was one of the most accomplished physicists in the 2nd half of the 20th century. His publications speak for themselves. However, as represented in this set of lecture notes, I do not find him as a pedagogue more enlightening than others. I bought and read this book in grad school, and found it to be a nice quick intro to several topics (spin waves and such). I did not, and still don't find the exposition physically exceptionally profound. One difference though, is the fact that Feynman, with his fame, could afford to be rather informal in his presentation. Any unsatisfactory aspects would be accepted as the mysterious ways of a 'genius'. If you are a student and would like to learn to solve problems on your own, forget this one. What this book gives you is a little 'attitude', aside from a quick intro, which most of us haven't earned the right to put on, of doing physics. Try it. Try to be as unorthodox and informal as he was, and you will mostly end up with nonsense.

A classic by one of the best. I wish I could say I understand
it all, but it rings true in many ways. His famous quote
"I can definitely say that Nobody understands Quantum Mechanics"
is perhaps this biggest "Moo Clue".