Review
"An excellent graduate-level text. The selection of topics is very complete and gives to the student a wide view of the applications of statistical mechanics. The set problems reinforce the theory exposed in the text, helping the student to master the material" --Francisco Cevantes "Making sense out of the world around us in one of the most appealing facets of physics. One may start by putting together seemingly isolated observations and as the different pieces start to fall into place, more complicated arrangements and more fundamental explanations are sought. This is indeed the case for instance when trying to understand the behaviour of a collection of particles. On the one hand, thermo- dynamics provides us with a satisfactory explanation of the macroscopic phenomena observed, however, in order to get to the core of the physical system it becomes necessary to take into account the microscopic constituents of the system as well as the fact that quantum mechanical effects are at play. This is the realm of statistical mechanics and the subject of one of the most widely recognised textbooks around the globe: Pathria’s Statistical Mechanics.…The original style of the book is kept, and the clarity of explanations and derivations is still there. I am convinced that this third edition of Statistical Mechanics will enable a number of new generations of physicists to gain a solid background of statistical physics and that can only be a good thing." --Contemporary Physics
About the Author
Paul D. Beale is a Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. He earned a B.S. in Physics with Highest Honors at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1977, and Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University in 1982. He served as a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Theoretical Physics at Oxford University from 1982-1984. He joined the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder in 1984 as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 1991, and professor in 1997. He served as the Chair of the Department of Physics from 2008-2016. He also served as Associate Dean for Natural Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Honors Program. He is currently Director of the Buffalo Bicycle Classic, the largest scholarship fundraising event in the State of Colorado. Beale is a theoretical physicist specializing in statistical mechanics, with emphasis on phase transitions and critical phenomena. His work includes renormalization group methods, finite-size scaling in spin models, fracture modes in random materials, dielectric breakdown in metal-loaded dielectrics, ferroelectric switching dynamics, exact solutions of the finite two-dimensional Ising model, solid-liquid phase transitions of molecular systems, and ordering in layers of molecular dipoles. His current interests include scalable parallel pseudorandom number generators, and interfacing quantum randomness with cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generators. He is coauthor with Raj Pathria of the third and fourth editions of the graduate physics textbook Statistical Mechanics. The Boulder Faculty Assembly has honored him with the Excellence in Teaching and Pedagogy Award, and the Excellence in Service and Leadership Award. Beale is a private pilot and an avid cyclist. He is married to Erika Gulyas, and has two children: Matthew and Melanie.
