Richard C. Tolman (1881–1948)

This is kind of an old-fashioned presentation of relativity. However, an advantage of that is that the author considers topics that have been left out of more "modern" presentations - not always for good reason!

The Principles of Statistical Mechanics is divided into three major parts. The first part covers Classical Statistical Mechanics with the Maxwell Boltzmann Distributions being covered among other things. The second part uses Quantum Mechanics to elucidate the subject and make its coverage more accurate. The third and final part discusses Statistical Mechanics as it relates to Thermodynamics.

The book logically builds on itself, but previous knowledge of Greek letters is pretty necessary. My show more biggest issue was that I would confuse the symbols or forget what φ means. Not to mention the fact that I am bad with Greek letters and kept having to make up names for them. ψ becomes "fork." In any case, I finally looked up the names for Greek Letters and had a bit of an easier time. show less

A very important book in statistical mechanics. Tolman dedicated the book to J. Robert Oppenheimer (with whom all aspects of the text have been discussed).