Instructor:  Todd Gingrich

Office:  Ryan 4018

Office Hours:   Wednesday 4-5 pm, Ryan 4018

Telephone:  510-457-8600

Email:  todd.gingrich@northwestern.edu

TA:  Chuying Huang

Office Hours:   Tuesday 3-4 pm, Thursday 4-5 pm, 4026 Ryan Hall

Email:  ChuyingHuang2027@u.northwestern.edu

Lecture:  Tech LG52

Time:  TuTh 9:30-10:50am CST

Midterm Exam:  Thursday, November 9. 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 19, 2023: Introduction to the course, dynamics in chemistry, chaos, and ergodicity hypothesis. [Link]
• Thursday, September 21, 2023: Microcanonical entropy and systems with fluctuating energy. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, September 26, 2023: The Boltzmann distribution. [Link]
  
• Thursday, September 28, 2023: Connecting statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 3, 2023: The canonical ensemble and fluctuation-response relations. [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 5, 2023: Legendre transforms - connecting partition functions and free energies. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 10, 2023: Reversible work theorem [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 12, 2023: Lots of Ensembles [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 17, 2023: Ensemble Equivalence [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 19, 2023: Pulling on a Polymer [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 24, 2023: Crooks Fluctuation Theorem [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 26, 2023: Phase Coexistence [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 31, 2023: Ideal Gas Chemical Potential [Link]
  
• Thursday, November 2, 2023: Crossovers versus Phase Transitions [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 7, 2023: Ising Phase Transitions [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 14, 2023: Introduction to Monte Carlo [Link]
  
• Thursday, November 16, 2023: Markov Chain Monte Carlo [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 21, 2023: Molecular Dynamics Primer [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 29 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 13 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 4, due Friday, October 20 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 5, due Friday, October 27 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 6, due Friday, November 3 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Assignment 7, due Friday, November 17 at 5 pm.
  
• Problem Set 8, due Wednesday, November 22 (or Friday, December 1) at 5 pm. [Ising1D.ipynb] [Ising2DFramework.ipynb]