PH 304 Statistical Physics (Spring 2017-18)
Instructor Name: Sumiran Pujari Course Type: Theory Pre-requisites: No formal course pre-requisites. Informal pre-requisites are first year calculus and quantum physics. Some knowledge of probability theory is expected which is covered in the Data Analysis course. Course Content: Probability Theory, Thermodynamics, Classical Statistical Mechanics - microcanonical, canonical, grand canonical, Gibbs canonical ensembles, Quantum Statistical Mechanics - microcanonical, canonical, grand canonical, Gibbs canonical ensembles, Ideal quantum gases - Bose gas and Fermi gas Other topics covered: Interacting particles Books: Statistical Physics of Particles - Mehran Kardar, Statistical Mechanics - Pathria and Beale Lectures: No attendance mandatory, only blackboard was used. The lectures were very comprehensive in terms of the course content but the math intensive lectures tended to be very vague. There were many quizzes which were open-notebook so it was helpful to...