Modern Physics: Statistical Mechanics (Spring 2013‪)‬ Stanford Continuing Studies

(June 3, 2013) Professor Susskind continues the discussion of phase transitions beginning with a review of the Ising model and then introduces the physics of the liquid-gas phase transition.

Leonard Susskind develops the Ising model of ferromagnetism to explain the mathematics of phase transitions. The one-dimensional Ising model does not exhibit phase transitions, but higher dimension models do. (May 27, 2013)

Leonard Susskind continues the discussion of reversibility by calculating the small but finite probability that all molecules of a gas collect in one half of a room. He then introduces the statistical mechanics of magnetism. (May 20, 2013)

Leonard Susskind addresses the apparent contradiction between the reversibility of classical mechanics and the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy generally increases. This topic leads to a discussion of the foundation of chaos theory. (May 13, 2013)

Leonard Susskind derives the equations for the energy and pressure of a gas of weakly interacting particles, and develops the concepts of heat and work which lead to the first law of thermodynamics. (May 6, 2013)

Leonard Susskind presents the mathematical definition of pressure using the Helmholtz free energy, and then derives the famous equation of state for an ideal gas: pV = NkT. (April 29, 2013)