Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Leading physical chemist David Chandler takes a new approach to statistical mechanics to provide the only introductory-level work that covers the modern topics which have revolutionized the field: renormalization group theory, Monte Carlo simulations, time correlation functions, and liquid structure. He provides summaries of the fundamentals along with discussions of many traditional applications of statistical mechanics, interspersed with over 150 exercises and microcomputer programs. The work will be of interest to students in elementary statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, thermal and statistical physics, and statistical thermodynamics in departments of chemistry, chemical engineering, and physics.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Chapter 1 Thermodynamics, Fundamentals
• First Law of Thermodynamics
• Second Law
• Variational Statement of Second Law
• Application: Thermal Equilibrium and Temperature
• Auxiliary Functions and Legendre Transforms
• Maxwell Relations
• Extensive Functions and the Gibbs-Duhem Equation
• Intensive Functions
• Chapter 2 Conditions for Equilibrium and Stability
• Multiphase Equilibrium
• Stability
• Application to Phase Equilibria
• Plane Interfaces
• Chapter 3 Statistical Mechanics
• The Statistical Method and Ensembles
• Microcanonical Ensemble and the Rational Foundation of Thermodynamics
• Canonical Ensemble
• A Simple Example
• Generalized Ensembles and the Gibbs Entropy Formula
• Fluctuations Involving Uncorrelated Particles
• Alternative Development of Equilibrium Distribution Functions
• Chapter 4 Non-Interacting (Ideal) Systems
• Occupation Numbers
• Photon Gas
• Phonon Gas
• Ideal Gases of Real Particles
• Electrons in Metals
• Classical Ideal Gases, the Classical Limit
• Thermodynamics of an Ideal Gas of Structureless Classical Particles
• A Dilute Gas of Atoms
• A Dilute Gas of Diatomic Molecules
• Chemical Equilibria in Gases
• Chapter 5 Statistical Mechanical Theory of Phase Transitions
• Ising Model
• Lattice Gas
• Broken Symmetry and Range of Correlations
• Mean Field Theory
• Variational Treatment of Mean Field Theory
• Renormalization Group (RG) Theory
• RG Theory for the Two Dimensional Ising Model
• Isomorphism Between Two-Level Quantum Mechanical System and the Ising Model
• Chapter 6 Monte Carlo Method in Statistical Mechanics
• Trajectories
• A Monte Carlo Trajectory
• Non-Boltzmann Sampling
• Quantum Monte Carlo
• Chapter 7 Classical Fluids
• Averages in Phase Space
• Reduced Configurational Distribution Functions
• Reversible Work Theorem
• Thermodynamic Properties from g(r)
• Measurement of g(r) by Diffraction
• Solvation and Chemical Equilibrium in Liquids
• Molecular Liquids
• Monte Carlo for Hard Disks
• Chapter 8 Statistical Mechanics of Non-Equilibrium Systems
• Systems Close to Equilibrium
• Onsager's Regression Hypothesis and Time Correlation Functions
• Application: Chemical Kinetics
• Another Application: Self Diffusion
• Fluctuation Dissipation Theorem
• Response Functions
• Absorption
• Friction and the Langevin Equation