Synopses & Reviews
"This textbook for graduate students and ing possible not only to build machines at the scale of integrated electronic circuits and circuits with ""wires"" no thicker than an atom, but also to manipulate biological tissues and materials at the scale of individual cells, organelles, and even molecules. The implications of this technology are profound: for computer technology, for electromechanical sensors and actuators, for materials science and manufacturing, and for biomedical engineering.||The molecular machines of living organisms provide the paradigm for the discussion in this text. It thus emphasizes chemical physics, particularly solution-phase chemistry, as a basis for understanding the assembly of molecular machines. In addition, the book discusses the proximity-probe methods and bioengineering associated with understanding and designing devices at nanometer scales.||""Molecular Nantechnology "" will be of interest to physicists, chemists, materials scientists, biological physicists, computer scientists, and manufacturing engineers.||From the reviews:||[Provides] an intuitive, scientific framework for understanding nanoscale systems . . . Rietman had organized the book around his precept that solution-phase chemistry and protein engineering will bootstrap us into the first phase of nanotechnology. . . . Useful for those who might need a basic introduction to some of the important issues in nanotechnology and the influence of the chemical and biological science on the nanotechnology revolution . . . Those seeking a qualitative picture of nanoscale systems engineering will find it a useful reference.|-Physics Today"
Review
FROM THE REVIEWS: MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS "Critical depth and vivid presentation of concepts are the best qualities of this textbook, which can be recommended for an introductory course in statistical mechanics..."
Synopsis
This book presents the major areas of statistical mechanics and concludes with a demonstration of applications of statistical mechanics at the level of current research. The presentation begins with the fundamental ideas of averages and ensembles, focusing on classical systems described by continuous variables such as position and momentum. It then turns to quantum systems, beginning with diatomic molecules and working up through blackbody radiation and chemical equilibria.
Synopsis
This volume is based on courses on Statistical Mechanics which I have taught for many years at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. My objective is to treat classical statistical mechanics and its modem applications, especially interacting particles, correlation functions, and time-dependent phenomena. My development is based primarily on Gibbs's ensemble formulation. Elementary Lectures in Statistical Mechanics is meant as a (relatively sophis- ticated) undergraduate or (relatively straightforward) graduate text for physics students. It should also be suitable as a graduate text for physical chemistry stu- dents. Physicists may find my treatment of algebraic manipulation to be more explicit than some other volumes. In my experience some of our colleagues are perhaps a bit over-enthusiastic about the ability or tendency of our students to complete gaps in the derivations. I emphasize a cyclic development of major themes. I could have begun with a fully detailed formal treatment of ensemble mechanics, as found in Gibbs's volume, and then given material realizations. I instead interleave formal discussions with simple concrete models. The models illustrate the formal definitions. The approach here gives students a chance to identify fundamental principles and methods before getting buried in ancillary details.
Synopsis
This textbook for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in physics and physical chemistry covers the major areas of statistical mechanics and concludes with a demonstration of applications of statistical mechanics at the level of current research. Intended for a one-semester course, the text includes several asides on topics that are usually omitted from introductory courses, as well as numerous problems at the ends of chapters.
Synopsis
This textbook for graduates and advanced undergraduates in physics and physical chemistry covers the major areas of statistical mechanics and concludes with the level of current research. It begins with the fundamental ideas of averages and ensembles, focusing on classical systems described by continuous variables such as position and momentum, and using the ideal gas as an example. It then turns to quantum systems, beginning with diatomic molecules and working up through blackbody radiation and chemical equilibria. The discussion of equilibrium properties of systems of interacting particles includes such techniques as cluster expansions and distribution functions and uses non-ideal gases, liquids, and solutions. Dynamic behavior -- treated here more extensively than in other texts -- is discussed from the point of view of correlation functions. The text concludes with the problem of diffusion in a suspension of interacting hard spheres and what can be learned about such a system from scattered light. Intended for a one-semester course, the text includes several "asides" on topics usually omitted from introductory courses, as well as numerous exercises.
Table of Contents
Preface.- Part I: Fundamentals. Seperable Systems.- Part II: Quantum Systems.- Part III: Correlated Systems.- Part IV: Dynamics.- Part V: A Research Problem.