Physics 212 is a one-quarter graduate-level course in Statistical Mechanics that will be given by Michael Peskin in the Fall 2022 term at Stanford University. The course will meet MW 3:00 - 4:20 in room 60-109, in the main quad next to Mem Church.
Despite the general-sounding title of the course, this Statistical Mechanics course is more advanced that the typical such course and fills a different need. The course is entirely devoted to the study of phase transitions and critical phenomena. Thus, it covers collective phenomena in systems with a large number of degrees of freedom, introducing the important concepts of statistical correlations, long-range order, spontaneously broken symmetry, Goldstone bosons, the Higgs mechanism, and the renormalization group. These concepts, mainly developed in the 1950's to the 1970's, reflect the biggest step in our understanding of physics after the invention of quantum mechanics. They provide the underlying, and often unspoken, background for current research in condensed matter, nuclear, and particle physics.
Physics 212 is one of the few courses required for all Stanford Physics graduate students. For most students, it is the one chance to encounter these concepts in a classroom setting before discovering them as you puzzle over the literature in your specialty. The course will be challenging (especially for those of you who take it as new incoming Stanford students), but I hope that you will leave it with a strong foundation as your pursue more advanced and up-to-date research topics in physics.
If you have any questions about this course, please email me at mpeskin"at"slac.stanford.edu. I would be happy to arrange a meeting at a time convenient for you.
There are many excellent textbooks on Statistical Mechanics and on the theory of phase transitions. As a basic Statistical Mechanics textbook, I recommend Statistical Mechanics: Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity, by James Sethna. Sethna's course is exceptionally well designed. It covers the basics of Statistical Mechanics, including the standard ensembles and foundational material on ideal classical and quantum gases, before venturing into the theory of phase transitions. It contains many useful exercises, including computer simulation exercises. If you want to own one textbook of Statistical Mechanics, this should be the one. However, this course will cover only the second half of this book, and, accordingly, at a somewhat higher level. For theory students who would like a more high-powered text, I recommend the 2-volume set by Mehran Kardar, Statistical Physics of Particles and Statistical Physics of Fields. The material of the second volume overlaps substantially with the content of this course. However, be warned that Kardar's book is more technical than desired for an introductory course. I also highly recommend the volume Statistical Physics in the Landau and Lifshitz series. Every topic is discussed with striking insights. However, in Landau's style, the ratio of information to words is very high. Other useful references are listed at the bottom of this page.
General Course Information for Physics 212
Syllabus and lecture notes for Physics 212: The lectures marked (*) are bonus subjects not required as a part of the course.
Problem sets for Physics 212:
During the course of the term, there will be 2 Quizzes and a Final Exam. These will be dispensed here:
Here are the Quizzes and final exam from Fall 2021:
In Fall 2020, reflecting Stanford's policy for pandemic remote teaching, there was no final exam in Physics 212. I gave 3 Quizzes that formed the main basis for grading. Here they are, with their solutions:
Recommended reading for Physics 212: