Foundations of Statistical Mechanics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 1-30

3. Theory of Probability

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 31-63

4. Equilibrium Thermodynamics

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 64-83

5. Quantum Statistical Mechanics

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 84-123

6. Noninteracting Particles

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 124-160

7. External Fields

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 161-196

8. Interacting Particles, I: Classical and Quantum Clustering

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 197-248

9. Interacting Particles, II: Fock Space Formulation

   • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

   Pages 249-289

10. The Phases of Matter

    • Walter T. Grandy Jr.

    Pages 290-333

11. Back Matter

    Pages 335-380

    PDF

In a certain sense this book has been twenty-five years in the writing, since I first struggled with the foundations of the subject as a graduate student. It has taken that long to develop a deep appreciation of what Gibbs was attempting to convey to us near the end of his life and to understand fully the same ideas as resurrected by E.T. Jaynes much later. Many classes of students were destined to help me sharpen these thoughts before I finally felt confident that, for me at least, the foundations of the subject had been clarified sufficiently. More than anything, this work strives to address the following questions: What is statistical mechanics? Why is this approach so extraordinarily effective in describing bulk matter in terms of its constituents? The response given here is in the form of a very definite point of view-the principle of maximum entropy (PME). There have been earlier attempts to approach the subject in this way, to be sure, reflected in the books by Tribus [Thermostat­ ics and Thermodynamics, Van Nostrand, 1961], Baierlein [Atoms and Information Theory, Freeman, 1971], and Hobson [Concepts in Statistical Mechanics, Gordon and Breach, 1971].

• Potential
• clustering
• correlation
• statistics
• thermodynamics

• Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, USA

  Walter T. Grandy

Policies and ethics