Instructor:  Todd Gingrich

Office:  The Internet

Office Hours:   Thursdays 1 pm, Zoom Link

Telephone:  510-457-8600

Email:  todd.gingrich@northwestern.edu

TA:  Baxter Flor

Office Hours:   Mondays 3-4 pm, Fridays 12-1 pm

Email:  baxterflor2024@u.northwestern.edu

Lecture:  Zoom Link

Time:  MTuWF 1-1:50pm CST

The course syllabus contains additional information about notes, evaluations, collaboration, programming assignments, and a course outline.

The course website (this site) will be used to post lecture notes, special notes, homework assignments, and homework solutions.

Lecture notes:

• Thursday, May 6, 2021: Introduction to the course, steady states of dynamical systems, macroscopic versus microscopic measurements. [Link]
  
• Friday, May 7, 2021: Macrostates, steady states, and equal a priori weights. [Link]
  
• Monday, May 10, 2021: Random walks and counting microstates. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, May 11, 2021: Boltzmann entropy and thermal baths. [Link]
  
• Wednesday, May 12, 2021: The Boltzmann distribution. [Link]
  
• Friday, May 14, 2021: Connecting beta and temperature. [Link]
  
• Monday, May 17, 2021: Conditions for equilibrium. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, May 18, 2021: Conditions for equilibrium continued. [Link]
  
• Wednesday, May 19, 2021: Introducing generating functions. [Link]
  
• Friday, May 21, 2021: Connecting free energies and partition functions. [Link]
  
• Monday, May 24, 2021: What's partion-y about partition functions; what's free about free energy? [Link]
  
• Tuesday, May 25, 2021: Reversible work. [Link]
  
• Wednesday, May 26, 2021: Irreversible work. [Link]
  
• Friday, May 28, 2021: Potentials of mean force and intro to kinetics. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, June 1, 2021: Two-state kinetics. [Link]
  
• Thursday, June 3, 2021: Three-state kinetics. [Link]
  
• Friday, June 4, 2021: Diffusion. [Link]
  

Homework assignments will normally be made available on this website one week before they are due. Late work will only be accepted if arrangements are made in advance or if there are particularly exceptional circumstances. 

• Problem Set 1, due Sunday, May 16 at Midnight [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 2, due Friday, May 21 at 5 pm [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 3, due Friday, May 28 at 5 pm [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 4, due Friday, June 4 at 5 pm [Solutions]
  
• Final Exam, due Saturday, June 12 at Noon [Solutions]