Mandatory Pre-Class Reading, and Lecture Notes

Before each class (normally two days before), we will post required reading from the textbook. You will benefit much more from lectures if you do the advance reading as required.

Lecture notes will be posted here regularly, for two reasons: (a) students with learning disabilities may need them, and (b) students loved it when I did this in the past. Downloading lecture notes is, however, no substitute for attending lectures. My verbal discussion of a physics concept or example in class is often quite different than what is in the notes, and a lot more valuable. Electronic copies of lecture notes are also notoriously unable to answer questions .

Lecture notes have blue links below, while tutorial notes have black links. Enjoy!

Week	L/T	Date	Pre-class KK reading	Lecture & Tutorial Notes
1	Lec	03 Jan	[none]	Introduction to the course and the prof.
	Lec	05 Jan	Ch1, pp6-18	Introducing the spin system
	Tut	07 Jan		Introduction to the tutorials and the TA.
2	Lec	10 Jan	Ch1, pp19-26	The Gaussian Probability Distribution
	Lec	12 Jan	Ch2, pp27-39	Average and RMS values, ensembles, and two systems in thermal contact
	Tut	14 Jan		Review of Spin Systems
3	Lec	17 Jan	Ch2, pp39-54	Entropy and Temperature
	Lec	19 Jan	Ch3, pp55-64	Boltzmann Factor, Partition Function Z
	Tut	21 Jan		Examples: "Never" and Paramagnetism
4	Lec	24 Jan	Ch3, pp64-72	Pressure, the Helmholtz Free Energy F
	Lec	26 Jan	Ch3, pp72-74	Maxwell Relations, Partition function for free non-relativistic particle
	Tut	28 Jan		Partition Function, Zipper Dynamics, Quantum H.O.
5	Lec	31 Jan	Ch3, pp74-78	Ideal Gas Laws
	Lec	02 Feb	Ch4, pp89-94	Photons, part 1
	Tut	04 Feb		Partition Function: 3 Examples
6	Lec	07 Feb	Ch4, pp94-102	Photons, part 2
	Lec	09 Feb	Ch4, pp102-109	Phonons
	Tut	11 Feb		More on the Partition Function
-		[14-18 Feb: Reading Week,no classes]
7	Lec	21 Feb	[none]	Introduction to Dimensional Analysis
	Lec	23 Feb	Chapters 1-4	Review Lecture!
		25 Feb	MIDTERM EXAM (In-class)
8	Lec	28 Feb	Ch5, pp117-125	Introduction to Chemical Potential
	Lec	02 Mar	Ch5, pp134-144	Gibbs factor and Grand Partition function
	Tut	05 Mar		[Midterm post-mortem ]
9	*Tut*	07 Mar		Examples with Chemical Potential
	Lec	09 Mar	Ch6, pp151-161	Fermions and Bosons: distribution functions
	*Lec*	11 Mar	Ch6, pp162-176	Internal degrees of freedom of ideal gases: qualitative
10	Lec	14 Mar	Ch7, pp182-188	Internal modes partition function; Quantum Fermi gas at T=0, Fermi energy
	Lec	16 Mar	Ch7, pp189-199	Density of states, Quantum Fermi gas at low-T
	Tut	18 Mar		Exploration of the Ideal Gas
11	Lec	21 Mar	Ch7, pp199-206	Bose-Einstein condensation
	Lec	23 Mar	[none]	Fun lecture on black hole thermodynamics!
	Tut	25 Mar		no tutorial - Good Friday
12	Lec	28 Mar	Ch7, pp207-218	Helium at low temperature; superfluidity
	Lec	30 Mar	Ch8, pp225-244	Heat and work, efficiency, Second Law
	Tut	01 Apr
13	Lec	04 Apr	Ch8, pp225-244	Carnot cycle, other engine gedankenexperiments
	Lec	06 Apr	Chapters 1-8 and all lecture notes	Review Lecture !
	Tut	08 Apr		Q&A with TA and Prof
		[11-15 Apr: Study Week]
		18 Apr	FINAL EXAM

[ Abbreviations: "Lec" = Lecture; "Tut" = Tutorial; "KK" = the textbook by Kittel and Kroemer, "Ch" = chapter, "pp" =pages, "TBA" = to be announced. ]

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Last updated 16-feb-2005.