PHYS 6562

Statistical Physics I

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2024-2025 Catalog. Courses of Study 2024-2025 is scheduled to publish mid-June.

A broad, graduate level view of statistical mechanics, with applications to not only physics and chemistry, but to computation, mathematics, dynamical and complex systems, and biology. Some traditional focus areas will not be covered in detail (thermodynamics, phase diagrams, perturbative methods, interacting gasses and liquids).  

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: a high level of sophistication, equivalent to but not necessarily the same as that of a first-year physics graduate student (undergrad-level quantum, classical mechanics, and thermodynamics).

Permission Note Primarily for: graduate students.

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SP, 2024SP, 2023SP, 2022SP

When Offered Spring.

Comments Only a small portion of the course (roughly one and a half weeks) will demand a knowledge of quantum mechanics; students with no quantum background have found the rest of the course comprehensible and useful, if challenging.

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