====== Statistical Mechanics ======
 


<tabbox Intuitive> 

<note tip>
Explanations in this section should contain no formulas, but instead colloquial things like you would hear them during a coffee break or at a cocktail party.
</note>
  
<tabbox Concrete> 
**Recommended Resources:**

  * [[http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9133/2/What_is_SM.pdf|What is Statistical Mechanics?]] by Roman Frigg 
  * The Principles of Statistical Mechanics by Richard C. Tolman 
  * See also [[https://github.com/rht/phython/blob/master/review/statmech.pdf|this review]], and [[https://github.com/rht/phython/blob/master/review/statmech2.pdf|part 2]].
  * A great explanation how one can derive the Boltzmann distribution from the principle of maximal entropy is given at page 3 in https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.0813.pdf
  * Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics by F. Reif
  * A crash course in Statistical Mechanics https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/noahmiller/files/statistical_mechanics.pdf
<tabbox Abstract> 


[{{ :theories:classical_theories:image_20171011_153609.png?nolink |Source: Where do quantum field theories come from? by McGreevy}}]

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**Recommended Resources:**

  * http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/sft.html

<tabbox Why is it interesting?> 

Statistical mechanics is a framework that allows us to describe systems with many degrees of freedom, although we don't know all the microscopic details. For example, using statistical mechanics we can describe a gas or a block of metal, although we don't know all individual atom configurations. 



</tabbox>