Statistical Physics

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Statistical physics is not a difficult subject, and I trust that this will not be found a difficult book. It contains much that a number of generations of Lancaster students have studied with me, as part of their physics honours degree work. The lecture course was of twenty hours duration, and I have added comparatively little to the lecture syllabus. A pre­ requisite is that the reader should have a working knowledge of basic thermal physics (i.e. the laws of thermodynamics and their application to simple substances). The book Thermal Physics by Colin Finn in this series forms an ideal introduc­ tion. Statistical physics has a thousand and one different ways of approaching the same basic results. I have chosen a rather down-to-earth and unsophisticated approach, without I hope totally obscuring the considerable interest of the fun­ damentals. This enables applications to be introduced at an early stage in the book. As a low-temperature physicist, I have always found a particular interest in statistical physics, and especially in how the absolute zero is approached. I should not, therefore, apologize for the low-temperature bias in the topics which I have selected from the many possibilities.