Instructor:  Todd Gingrich

Office:  Ryan 4018

Office Hours:   Wednesday 4-5 pm, Ryan 4018

Telephone:  510-457-8600

Email:  todd.gingrich@northwestern.edu

TA:  Jonah Greenberg

Office:  Ryan 4034

Office Hours:   Tuesday/Thursday 3-4 pm, 4026 Ryan Hall

Email:  JonahGreenberg2024@u.northwestern.edu

Lecture:  Tech L160

Time:  TuTh 9:30-11am CST

Midterm Exam:  Thursday, November 10. Exam template [Solutions]

Please consult the course syllabus for course objective and policies.

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

Lecture notes:

• Tuesday, September 20, 2022: Introduction to the course, dynamics in chemistry, chaos, and ergodicity hypothesis. [Link]
• Thursday, September 22, 2022: Microcanonical entropy and systems with fluctuating energy. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, September 27, 2022: The Boltzmann distribution. [Link]
  
• Thursday, September 29, 2022: Connecting statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 4, 2022: The canonical ensemble and fluctuation-response relations. [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 6, 2022: Legendre transforms - connecting partition functions and free energies. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 11, 2022: Reversible work theorem [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 13, 2022: Lots of Ensembles [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 18, 2022: Ensemble Equivalence [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 20, 2022: Pulling on a Polymer [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 25, 2022: Crooks Fluctuation Theorem [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 27, 2022: No Class due to IIN Symposium.
  
• Tuesday, November 1, 2022: Phase Coexistence [Link]
  
• Thursday, November 3, 2022: Ideal Gas Chemical Potential [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 8, 2022: Crossovers versus Phase Transitions [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 15, 2022: Ising Phase Transitions [Link]
  
• Thursday, November 17, 2022: Introduction to Monte Carlo [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 22, 2022: Markov Chain Monte Carlo [Link]
  

Homework assignments will normally be made available on this website by Thursday of each week, and will be due on Friday of the following week at 5 pm. Late work will only be accepted if arrangements are made in advance or if there are particularly exceptional circumstances. 

• Problem Set 0, due Never! [PlottingDemo.ipynb]
  
• Problem Set 1, due Friday, September 30 at 5 pm. [BiasedCoinFlips.ipynb] [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 2, due Friday, October 6 at 5 pm. [RandomLatticePolymer.ipynb] [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 3, due Friday, October 14 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 4, due Friday, October 21 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 5, due Friday, October 28 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 6, due Monday, November 7 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Assignment 7, due Friday, November 18 at 5 pm.
  
• Problem Set 8, due Wednesday, November 23 (or Friday, December 2) at 5 pm. [Ising1D.ipynb] [Ising2DFramework.ipynb] [Solutions]