Concepts in Thermal Physics

This book developed out of a yearlong course in Thermal Physics offered at the University of Oxford. It includes not only a very extensive coverage of classical thermodynamics but also statistical mechanics, including more advanced topics as Bose-Einstein Condensates.The book is very well organized, being split into many small self-contained chapters and the last few chapters explain the various applications to everything from condensed matter physics to astrophysics. It is quite accessible for a beginning undergraduate. The depth and breadth of topics covered make it apt for any ambitious undergraduate majoring in physics.Physically, the quality of print and papers is very good and the binding is also very nice for a paperback. No doubt, you can trust Oxford University Press for quality.(I will update my answer when I finish reading).

This book contains all what I need to gain good score in my college exams. Plenty of typos. Still a classic choice. Plenty of solved examples and exercises.

The book arrived in ship shape. The contents are apt for anyone pursuing a degree in physics. Go ahead buy it as this is a must have in your book case

This book is excellent. The author(s) try to establish all the basic concepts clearly before delving into the actual subject.Must read for someone new to this field.

In my opinion this is the best introductory book on thermal physics. The language of the book is very friendly and presentations of each topic is precise. Must have book for Physics students in UG or PG level.

Fine book

I've used this book in parts, and it's pretty dry - dry in the sense of physics content (not joke content). If you've fallen in love with texts like Landau Mechanics, you will probably not like this book too much. I felt the authors just wanted to summarize standard material for an introductory course without much depth or clever physical arguments. Sometimes, the book also lacks logic. For example in the photon gas chapter they say P = 1/3 nm<v^2> for classical nonrelativistic ideal gas and proceed to say "replace v with c, interpret mc^2 as the energy of the photon, and you have your formula P = U/3", which is just bizarre! If we do the same thing for the formula of U from nonrelativistic gas, you'll end up with U = 2U! The problem is, the authors don't present the above as a quick trick to derive the result, but rather write it as if it's the correct way of doing things!I did the thermo and stat mech course at Oxford last year, and it was amazing. The lecturer had their own set of notes for most topics - which almost is like a book - and that felt as nice to read as Landau Mechanics e.g. Unfortunately some topics (like the photon gas) weren't covered in the notes and Blundell^2 was referred. Going from those notes to this book was a terrible experience.Overall I'd say use some better resource that covers the material in more depth and is written more slickly - I recommend either those notes mentioned above (by Professor Alexander Schekochihin, Oxford) or Kardar's book, Statistical Physics of Particles.P.S. Professor Stephen Blundell is an excellent lecturer - probably one of the best! He taught us a course Electromagnetism last year, and it was very enjoyable. I was just very surprised that this thermal physics book is coauthored by him. I think at that time they really wanted to write an "easy book" that covers all the material.

*PhysicalThis book has superb, high quality paper pages within it covers. Also its very securely bound for a paperback. The book has a weight to it that reflects the quality of the educational guidance you will gain from reading it.* H.N.D, Undergraduate, Post graduate?This book covers the wide area of the flow of heat being thermal energy in transit in physical systems. To me, its the way this is cleverly explored in distinct bands of difficulty. These are with some brief exposure to the upper components of a A-Level Math / Chemistry / Physics, the math components of H.N.D and 2nd - year Math parts of a engineering degree. You may fairly attribute these bands of ranking in a different ways, depending on your own study backgrounds? For example. the calculus upon Ln(e), exp(x), and the Greek symbols of summations and products using z variables are well used and very importantly applied many, many times. Also listed are brief life stories of the scientists that helped the development of these sciences.* What does it cover then?The bands of exposure covers, Preliminaries, Kinetic theory of gasses, Transport and thermal diffusion, (The) first law of dynamics, (The) second law of dynamics, (The) third law, Thermodynamics in action, Statistical mechanics, Beyond the ideal gas, Special topics, (a) fundamental constants / (b) useful formulae / (c) Useful mathematics / (D) The electromagnetic spectrum / (e) Some thermodynamic spectrum / Thermodynamic definitions / (g) reduced mass / (h) glossary of main symbols, Bibliography and index.* How is it explained?Throughout the book and within each of the areas there are many mathematical examples to follow. There are many graphs which usefully explain what's going on. Also there are more set questions with no answers unfortunately. The way these bands harness the new - to - the - reader information is a great way to study these topics. The usage of formulae can use symbols that represent equations with several components. These earlier topics are carefully linked to later topics. Such as state equations and in three dimensions. This is just more basic skills with more dimensions.* SummaryWhat I come away with is a broader background in an important areas of physics, with a decent, increased level of mathematical dexterity. This can be carried to other areas. The earlier - to middle areas I personally found challenging, then with the bulk of the knowledge gathered from earlier parts, it seemed easier.This book seemed worth its cost and I have found this book both interesting and pleasurable to read at the same time. So its a book to read cover - to - cover, rather than drop - in, (i.m.h.o). What I am saying is the ways in which the increments of difficulty been designed and coordinated has probably taken as much or even more time than the time to create the topic examples explored here.[update: i recommend this book after this magnificent volume.A Student's Guide to Entropyby Don S. LemonsPaperback: 200 pagesPublisher: Cambridge University Press (29 Aug. 2013)ISBN-10: 1107653975ISBN-13: 978-1107653979 ]

A very handy book to both educate and refresh you rmemory on thermal physics for both physicist and engineers, its well layed out and follows through methodically, and there are plenty of examples to sink your teeth into.

This book has been an absolute Godsend for my physics degree. It covers all of the basics of thermodynamics and some of statistical mechanics in an easy to understand way. It's no exaggeration to say that it's thanks to this book that I aced my thermodynamics module in first year!

I bought this book to prepare for a resit exam in thermal physics and Kinetic theory. I found it to be an invaluable resource as it is extremely user friendly. Every concept is explained really well with many examples and analogies.I seriously wish I read this book while studying for thermal physics the first time round.RECOMMENDED.

I bought this as I was studying a 'Thermal Physics' course, but the content of this book did not seem to have much of the same content at all. The questions were fairly sparse and sometimes only numerical solutions are provided. In contrast, it has great explanations of topics covered.