Customer Reviews

Statistical Thermodynamics (Dover Books on Physics)

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This book is an excellent guide in statistical thermodynamics. It's started with the theoretical justification of phenomenological thermodynamics and its system of concepts. In principle the methods of statistical mechanics are applicable to non-equilibrium states as well as to equilibrium properties. The author (Nobel prize,1933) treats only the theory of equilibrium properties for which the destination "Statistical Thermodynamics" has been adopted. As a consequence of the structure of phenomenological thermodynamic, statistical thermodynamics developed in this book separates into two principal parts: the derivation of thermodynamic principles and the calculation of thermodynamic functions for concrete systems. This text seems especially good for teaching basic thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. I recommend this book especially for students, because it's highest quality is the clarity of the exposed physical ideas.

This little book was recommended to me by a mentor, Wendell C. DeMarcus, in 1967 for its development of statistical ensembles. Schrödinger introduced the notion of a theoretical statistical ensemble as N-1 mental copies of the system interacting weakly with themselves. The reader will do well to buy this cheap Dover version (mine was published by Cambridge) and study it. It was written in Dublin in the same era that E.S. gave his now-famous genetics lectures and speculated that a 'genetic script'
(genetische Schrift) is written in linear fashion on the chromosomes. I was a student of Lars Onsager but I never asked Lars what he thought of Schrödinger's little book. DeMarcus was a collaborator of Onsager.

I have an ancient copy and also a newer version, the first was handed over to me by one of Polykarp Kusch's associates prior to his retirement from UTD. I have since read this book, as it was recommended reading for my thermodynamics class as well. I find it to be highly useful for the Fermi Dirac versus Bose-Einstein, Stirling's theorem and Nernst theorems. Also a mighty useful introduction to EM. Also I used it during my Masters for some of my thermo and solid state classes too. I'm glad I didn't have to take a 6th solid state class during my PhD, since by the time I finished mastering Solid State Physics in grad school, I was able to undergo examination by a graduate professor over the Mermin classic and was able to derive the equations because of reading little books like this one. Which was a good thing, cause I had a mini physics qualifier over lunch, and was asked to derive the Fermi Dirac and Bose Einstein equations and had to give a good explanation for them. I was then tested over all of both Kittel and Ashcroft & Mermin, and spent a good hour discussing both, 30 minutes of Kittel, and 30 minutes of Mermin, chapter by chapter. Other graduate students cringed when they heard that, as did some of the fellow professors. I'm glad I had an outstanding undergraduate education, where this kind of thing was to be expected.

This little book is a great buy for the advanced undergraduate or graduate student who has already had some exposure to Statistical Mechanics. Schrodinger's influence on modern physics is well known (The Schrodinger Equation, Schrodinger's Cat, Schrodinger's Method), but less well known is his clear and lucid writing style, exemplified in popular works such as "What is Life," but also seen in this more specialized text. This being true however, Schrodinger assumes knowledge of basic statistical mechanics, so it's a good idea to have a standard reference like Tolman or Kittel handy. The last thing is it covers many topics that simply aren't in the standard works, but tend to crop up all the time. It is for this reason a very good reference for grad students whose research involves some aspect of statistical mechanics, since documentation of the different information and techniques in this work is difficult to find outside it. Finally, you can't beat it at the price of $8.95.

In this book you have an opportunity to sit through 95 pages on the shoulder of a giant. Some of his observations are outdated - like his pessimism of ever seeing Bose-Einstein condensation - but this in itself is well worth the price of the book alone, to read in contemporary terms a well-informed view of the 1940s adds appreciation of the heroism of the experimental accomplishments of the 1990s that continue to the present. There are interesting insights, not available elsewhere, on just about every page. Having read this, you will be among the few who have read in its entirety a learned treatise by the great Schroedinger, in only 95 pages. That is a few days' work well spent by anyone!

Title says it all: either the translator (if this is a translation from german, but I doubt) or the author (I believe actually the latter) do not have enough command of the english language to make it a smooth read. It's a pitty, there are very nice/interesting points of view, and I do not think that just the advanced concepts are to blame for the difficulty of the readout. Any takers out there among the native english speakers nobel laureats to rewrite a classic ?