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Statistical Mechanics
Entropy, Order Parameters, and
Complexity
James P. Sethna
Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
14853-2501
The author provides this version of this manuscript with the primary in-
tention of making the text accessible electronically—through web searches
and for browsing and study puters. Oxford University Press retains
ownership of the copyright. Hard-copy printing, in particular, is subject to
the same copyright rules as they would be for a printed book.
CLARENDON PRESS . OXFORD
2007
Copyright Oxford University Press 2006 v1
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Copyright Oxford University Press 2006 v1
Preface
The purview of science grows rapidly with time. It is the responsibility
of each generation to join new insights to old wisdom, and to distill the
key ideas for the next generation. This is my distillation of the last fifty
years of statistical mechanics—a period of grand synthesis and great
expansion.
This text is careful to address the interests and background not only
of physicists, but of sophisticated students and researchers in mathe-
matics, biology, engineering, computer science, and the social sciences.
It therefore does not presume an extensive background in physics, and
(except for Chapter 7) explicitly does not assume that the reader knows
or cares about quantum mechanics. The text treats the intersection of
the interests of all of these groups, while the exercises pass the
union of interests. Statistical mechanics will be taught in all of these
fields of science in the next generation, whether wholesale or piecemeal
by field. By making statistical mechanics useful prehensible to
a variety of fields, we enrich the subject for those with backgrounds in
physics. Indeed, many physicists in their later careers are now taking
excursions into these other disciplines.
To make room for these new concepts and applications, much has
been pruned. Thermodynamics no l