Introduction to Statistics and Statistical Mechanics

Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write. 

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While writing the first chapters, the author discovered that there existed no book giving a full yet elementary treatment of solutions from the point of view of statistical mechanics. Feeling the need of such a book to refer to, he set aside the present project and proceeded to write one. It was published in 1949 by McGraw-Hill under the title, Introduction to Statistical Mechanics. Some familiarity with Chapter 7 of that book will be found helpful by the reader of this one. 

Knud Andersen, Statistics and Molecules. An Introduction to Statistical Mechanics, Kobenhavns Univ., Afdel. Teoret. Kemi, Copenhagen, 1972. 

The standard work of reference is Fowler and Guggenheim [20]. An excellent introduction is given by G. S. Rushbrooke, Introduction to Statistical Mechanics, (Oxford, 1949). 

Review much of the material in this book in about 60 percent of tlie semester, a blistering pace, and then pm idc an introduction to statistical mechanics in the remainder of the coitrsc. 

Figure 29.2 Ground state and first excited state (dashed curve) electronic energies as a function of internuclear separation. (Adapted from T. L Hill, Introduction to Statistical Mechanics. Reading, Mass. Addison-Wesley, 1960.)...

An introduction to statistical mechanics that is adequate for a comprehension of the present discussion is given in Chap. 6 of G. Sposito, op cit. Full details are provided in Chap. 7 and 14 of T. L. Hill, An Introduction to Statistical Thermodynamics. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1960. 

The first part of this chapter contains a short introduction to statistical mechanics of continuum models of fluids and macromolecules. The next section presents a discussion of basic sampling theory (importance sampling) and the Metropolis Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics methods. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to descriptions of methods for calculating F and S, including those that were mentioned above as well as others. 

Baierlein, R. 1971. Atoms and Information Theory An Introduction to Statistical Mechanics, Freeman, San Francisco. 

Introduction to Statistical Mechanics and the Classical Mechanics of Interacting Particles... 

Part I contains the basis of thermodynamics developed on traditional lines, involving the Carnot cycle. Part II contains the main development in the field of chemical equilibria, and the methods adopted here have been much infiuenced by Guggenheim s books, to which I am greatly indebted. Part III contains a short introduction to statistical mechanics along the lines of the Gibbs ensemble and the methods used by B. C. Tolman in his Principles of Statistical Mechanics. 

J. S. Chisholm and A. H. de Borde, An Introduction to Statistical Mechanics , Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1958. 

Source "RA Alberty and RJ Silbe>, Physical Chemistry, 1st edition, Wiley, New York, 1992 Data are from M Chase et al. JANAF Thermochemical Tables, J Phys Chem Ref Data 14, Supplement 1 (1985) Knox, Molecular Thermodynamics an Introduction to Statistical Mechanics for Chemists, Re edition, New York, Wiley, 1978 RS Berry, SA Rice and J Ross, with the assistance of GP Fl nn and JN Kushick, Physical Chemistry, Wiley, New York, 1980. 

We have focused on equilibrium thermodynamics. However, statistical mechanics provides the concepts and the techniques for exploring fluctuations of a system away from equilibrium, and the behavior of a system that evolves in time as in a chemical reaction. The introduction to statistical mechanics in this chapter can only set the stage for that level of analysis. 

Interested readers can find an introduction to statistical thermodynamics, with derivations of the statistical concepts used in this chapter, in Chapter 12. For deeper study of statistical mechanics and physical chemistry a number of excellent texts are available. See for example the texts on statistical mechanics of Hill [86] and Pathria [156] and the comprehensive physical chemistry text of McQuarrie and Simon... 

It is assumed that the reader has had some introduction to thermodynamics at the level of an undergraduate course in physical chemistry. My previous book "Thermodynamics of Biochemical Reactions," Wiley, Hoboken, NJ (2003) provides a more complete introduction to the structure of thermodynamics and its relation to statistical mechanics. This successor book is needed because more recent research has clarified the structure of biochemical thermodynamics and opened up new possibilities for learning about the flow of energy in living things. Three aspects of these calculations are as follows ... 

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