Instructor:  Todd Gingrich

Office:  Ryan 4018

Office Hours:   Thursday 4-5 pm, Ryan 4018

Telephone:  510-457-8600

Email:  todd.gingrich@northwestern.edu

TA:  Kate Murphy

Office Hours:   Tuesday 3-4 pm, Thursday 5-6 pm, 4026 Ryan Hall

Email:  CathrynMurphy2027@u.northwestern.edu

Lecture:  Tech LG52

Time:  TuTh 9:30-10:50am CST

Midterm Exam:  Thursday, November 6. Exam template

2023 Midterm Exam:  [2023 Exam] [2023 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 16, 2025: Introduction to the course, dynamics in chemistry, chaos, and ergodicity hypothesis. [Link]
  
• Thursday, September 18, 2025: Microcanonical entropy and systems with fluctuating energy. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, September 23, 2025: The Boltzmann distribution. [Link]
  
• Thursday, September 25, 2025: Connecting statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, September 30, 2025: The canonical ensemble and fluctuation-response relations. [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 2, 2025: Legendre transforms - connecting partition functions and free energies. [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 7, 2025: Reversible work theorem [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 9, 2025: Lots of Ensembles [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 14, 2025: Ensemble Equivalence [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 16, 2025: Pulling on a Polymer [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 21, 2025 and Thursday, October 23, 2025: Crooks Fluctuation Theorem [Link]
  
• Tuesday, October 28, 2025: Phase Coexistence [Link]
  
• Thursday, October 30, 2025: Ideal Gas Chemical Potential [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 4, 2025: Crossovers versus Phase Transitions [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 11, 2025: Ising Phase Transitions [Link]
  
• Thursday, November 13, 2025: Landau Picture of Phase Transitions [Link]
  
• Tuesday, November 18, 2023: Introduction to 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 26 at 5 pm. [BiasedCoinFlips.ipynb] [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 2, due Friday, October 3 at 5 pm. [RandomLatticePolymer.ipynb] [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 3, due Friday, October 10 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 4, due Friday, October 17 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 5, due Friday, October 24 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Problem Set 6, due Friday, October 31 at 5 pm. [Solutions]
  
• Assignment 7, due Friday, November 17 at 5 pm.
  
• Problem Set 8, due Friday, November 21 (or Friday, December 5) at 5 pm. [Ising1D.ipynb] [Ising2DFramework.ipynb]