Chemistry 992	Spring 2008
Michigan State University

Statistical Mechanics

Lecture	Chapter (McQuarrie)	Topic	Number of lectures
1-7	1-3 (Huang 7,8)	fundamentals	(7 lectures)
8-10	5-8	ideal gases	(3 lectures)
11-13	4,10	quantum statistics	(3 lectures)
14-15	12	non-ideal gases	(2 lectures)
16-18	13	liquids	(3 lectures)

Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics

19-20	10-6; 7-2; problem 21.34	NSM	(2 lectures)
21-22	21-1, 21-7, App. F. G. H. K	GR and LRT	(2 lectures)
23-24	21-2,3,5,6; 22-2	IR and Raman Lineshapes	(2 lectures)
25-28	Notes on website	Ligand Binding	(4 lectures)

Instructor: R. Cukier cukier@cem.msu.edu

Office hours: To be announced

Class: Tu and Th 1:00-2:20 Room 283

Text: "Statistical Mechanics" D. McQuarrie
Reserve reading: click here

Grading:

Problem Sets	20%	alternate Tuesdays
Exam I	30%	2/14
Exam II	30%	4/08
Term paper	20%	5/02

click here for lecture notes

click here for problem sets/keys

click here for articles for term paper

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Schrödinger's cat 
Schrödinger's cat's a mystery cat, he illustrates the laws;
 The complicated things he does have no apparent cause;
 He baffles the determinist, and drives him to despair
 For when they try to pin him down--the quantum cat's not there!
 Schrödinger's cat's a mystery cat, he's given to random decisions;
 His mass is slightly altered by a cloud of virtual kittens;
 The vacuum fluctuations print his traces in the air
 But if you try to find him, the quantum cat's not there!
 Schrödinger's cat's a mystery cat, he's very small and light,
 And if you try to pen him in, he tunnels out of sight;
 So when the cruel scientist confined him in a box
 With poison-capsules, triggered by bizarre atomic clocks,
 He wasn't alive, he wasn't dead, or half of each; I swear
 That when they fixed his eigenstate--he simply wasn't there!

(from somewhere on the web)

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"Probability, dont you mess with me, let me make the most of a chance.
Either win or lose, still I got to choose, as long as there's a ghost of a chance."

(Square One - Public Television)

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