Statistical Physics: Theory of the Condensed State (Pt 2)

This version has the white colored background cover as it was printed in the EU. There are lower cost versions with black colored covers for lower prices printed in India. Otherwise, the internal contents are identical. If you want a color-matched set, best check with the seller to be certain.

The Landau & Lifshitz Course of Theoretical Physics is beyond being a classic. For two generations of physicists (and for many physical chemists and materials scientists as well), The Course has been at once a foundation and a guiding light. As a mineral physicist, the two Statistical Physics volumes (Part One and Part Two, as they're called) have been most valuable to me. A former colleague at IBM, a device physicist out of MIT and Berkeley, once observed to me (referring to Part One, before Part Two was published), "It's a hard book." So it is, and so is the shorter Part Two, which is devoted specifically to the "condensed state of matter", as the first sentence of the Preface informs us. Nobel Laureate and Planck Medal recipient Lev Landau (Einstein was the first recipient) had long since departed when Part Two was written, but his brilliant influence is everywhere. This volume is a gateway to understanding condensed matter at a level necessary to not only deploy the theory in your work, but to add to it. There are several great treatises on condensed matter, but, as I wrote in the headline, L & L is indispensable. It's 380 pages that can change you.

Excellent reference for a graduate school level course in statistical mechanics.

A classic which should adorn the bookshelf of all practicing scientist in a pertinent field.

thank you

This review is for Volume 9 of the Landau Course of Theoretical Physics.The whole Course is clear and concise, so it makes sense for anyone who wants to do theoretical physics to go through all ten volumes.We start off with normal Fermi liquids and gases, including a nice discussion of Zero Sound (which is distinguished from normal sound mostly by a slight increase in the sound velocity as one gets colder than a transition temperature, and by increased absorption of sound near the transition temperature). Then we learn about Green's functions in a Fermi system at T = 0 and Feynman diagram representations of them.After that, we study Bose liquids and gases. That means the properties of superfluids, including quasi-particles (phonons and rotons) and quantized vortex filaments. And the book shows how to apply Green's functions to Bose liquids. There's an interesting section on the disintegration of quasi-particles. Next, we're introduced to Green's functions for T > 0, using the Matsubara operators to reduce the complexity of the diagrams.And then we're ready to learn about superconductors. That means learning about Cooper pairing and superfluid Fermi gases, and learning how to apply Green's functions to them. And, not surprisingly, we learn the Ginzburg-Landau equations, so that we can determine the behavior of superconductors in magnetic fields in temperature ranges near the transition point.There's also a chapter on electrons in the crystal lattice, including the de Hass-van Alphen effect (which refers to a metal's magnetic susceptibility oscillating as the strength of a strong magnetic field changes - due to the quantization of the energy levels of the electrons) and electron-phonon interactions. And there's a nice chapter on magnetism.In the preface, the authors state "we must again stress that this book is part of a course of theoretical physics and in no way attempts to be a textbook of solid state theory." Are they kidding? This course is an excellent way to learn solid state physics.

This is the Volume 9 of the famous Course of Theoretical Physics by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz. All serious students of theoretical physics must possess the ten volumes of this excellente Course, which cover in detail and rigour practically all the branches of theoretical physics. The Volume 9 treats important specialized topics of modern statistical physics. These topics include the theory of quantum liquids(Fermi and Bose types), the theory of superfluidity, created by Landau to account for the phenomena ocurring in liquid helium at approximately 2 kelvin, the microscopic theory of superconductivity, the general method of Green's functions, so important to modern statistical physics, and some other topics, such as the quantum mechanics of a electron in a crystal lattice. The book still contains the general theory of electromagnetic and hydrodynamic fluctuations, treated in the spirit of the Green's functions. These topics are treated with rigour, efficiency and c! larity of language. For this reason, all readers with some aqquaintance with basic statistical physics can read and understand much of this book without major problems. Certainly there is not other book comparable with the Volume 9, a unique and valuable addition to the literature on modern statistical physics!

This book is smaller in size compared to others in the series.Poor printing quality made me think that maybe Amazon sent me counterfeit.