Sturge's Statistical and Thermal Physics, Second Edition

Jeffrey Olafsen is an Associate Professor of Physics at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. His research focuses on experimental non-equilibrium and nonlinear dynamics, including granular physics and biomechanics. The research in his laboratory has been primarily pursued with undergraduate researchers who are co-authors on his journal articles. The soft matter systems about which he publishes often draw on analogies to traditional thermodynamical systems.

• SECTION I Preamble 1 Introduction 2 Temperature, Work, and Heat 3 Heat Engines SECTION II The Fundamentals of Modern Thermodynamics 4 Macrostates and Microstates 5 Entropy, Free Energy, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics 6 The Canonical Distribution: The Boltzmann Factor and the Partition Function 7 Continuous Energy Levels, the Density of States, and Equipartition 8 Systems with a Variable Number of Particles: The Chemical Potential SECTION III The Thermodynamics of Gases 9 Perfect Gases 10 Ideal Gases and Solutions 11 Black Body Radiation and the Photon Gas 12 The Perfect Bose Gas: Bose-Einstein Condensation 13 The Perfect Fermi Gas SECTION IV Modern Thermostatistical Applications 14 Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors 15 Phase Transitions 16 Transport Processes 17 Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics 18 Biological Systems

"This second edition is an updating and reworking of Sturge’s original text by Olafsen (Baylor Univ.), who was the author of the first edition’s solution manual, has taught using the text, and notably used Sturge’s original notes as guidance for creating this revision. While Olafsen has addressed some well-known errors that appeared in the 2003 edition (CH, Mar'04, 41-4103), more significantly, he has reorganized and added to the text to enhance its utility for a broader audience. Typically, statistical physics is seen as a bridge between classical and quantum physics, which both Sturge and Olafsen believe to be an error. This difference in approach (explained in part 1) provides Olafsen’s motivation for regrouping the chapters, encouraging instructors to now start with macroscopic thermodynamics or perhaps microscopic statistics. Further along, the coverage of the thermodynamics of gases (part 3) has been reorganized so that instructors can selectively cover parts of the material more easily. Importantly, new chapters have been added on biological and chemical systems and non-equilibrium thermodynamics (part 4). Olafsen has also updated the text by introducing numerical simulations. These changes modernize the text and add considerable flexibility for instructors. Olafsen has been successful in his quest to provide a text that instructors should choose over the earlier edition."-E. Kincanon, Gonzaga University, in CHOICE, September 2020