Statistical Mechanics 6562/4488, Spring 2025
MWF, 10:10-11:00, Clark 294D
Jim Sethna
sethna@lassp.cornell.edu, PSB 412, 5-5132,
office hours Mon 11-12:00.
TA: Avinash Mandaiya, am2957@cornell.edu, PSB 425, office hours Fri 12:30-1:30, PSB 425K
Other key people: Amir Amhaz and Sully Bailey-Darland
sethna.lassp.cornell.edu/Teaching/562/
- Aimed broadly at grads in physics, computer science, engineering, biology,
mathematics, and the social sciences
- Quantum mechanics will be important only for two weeks during the course.
Previous statistical mechanics is not required, but extra work to catch up
would be necessary. A high level of scientific
sophistication, however, is expected.
- Will use a 'flipped classroom' format, with activities during class
hours and content covered in the reading.
- Text is the second edition,
Statistical Mechanics: Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity,
second edition.
This course focuses on those topics in statistical mechanics of interest
to scholars in many fields. Topics will include random walks and emergent
properties; temperature and equilibrium; phase space dynamics and ergodicity;
entropy; free energies; quantum statistical mechanics; calculation
and computation; order parameters, broken symmetries, and topology;
correlations, response, and dissipation; abrupt phase transitions; and
continuous phase transitions, fractals, and the renormalization group.
(Sethna's last semester teaching this course.)
Statistical Mechanics:
Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity Second Edition
Available at Oxford University Press
Statistical Mechanics: Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity,
available at
Oxford University Press.
Last modified: Dec. 19, 2025
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