Thermal and Statistical Physics

All chapters are copyrighted by Harvey Gould and Jan Tobochnik. They are not to be copied or distributed without contacting one of the authors. The notes are available as part of the STP project,

The notes have been published by Princeton University Press. The official cost of the book is $75, but it can be purchased for much less. The notes will remain freely available online, although their format differs from the published version. One goal of this project is to reduce the cost of textbooks and to make the material as readily available as possible. Solutions to the problems are available to instructors who have adopted the text upon request from Princeton University Press.

The website for the book is on Compadre, together with links to supplementary material.

Our text has been reviewed by Daniel ben-Avraham, J. Stat. Phys. 140 (5), 1022-1023 (2010), Don S. Lemons, Am. J. Phys. 79, 431-432 (2011), and A. H. Harker, Contemp. Phys. 52 (5), 492-493 (2011).

Further down the pipeline are online chapters on Dynamics and Statistical Physics.

Please send us your comments and suggestions for improving the text.

Many of the problems in Chapters 1 and 3-9 make use of simulations.

The pdf files are hyperlinked, although not all the links work with all operating systems and software used to read the pdf files.

The following chapters are more advanced.

Updated 20 August 2012. Last Modified 7/1/23