Department of Physics UC Berkeley Spring 2018

“He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy….”

—Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Physics 112.1
Introduction to Statistical and Thermal Physics
revision 1/16/2018
Instructor: Andrew E. Charman
Office: 445 Birge Hall
Telephone: (510) 642-4846
E-mail: acharman (AT) physics (DOT) berkeley (DOT) edu
Office Hours: currently Wed. 3 pm – 4 pm; Fri. 2 pm – 3 pm; or by appointment
(held in 429 Birge unless otherwise announced)

GSI: Nathan Ng
TA office: 560 Evans (or also try 419 Birge)
E-mail: nang (AT) berkeley (DOT) edu
Office Hours: TBA
(held in 109 LeConte unless otherwise announced)

Course Website: https://bcourses.berkeley.edu

Electronic forum: piazza.com: 28845 Physics 112.1 (Spring 2018)

Consultation Room: 429 Birge (instructor’s office hours will be held here)

Upper Division (find old homework…) Physics (find colleagues…)

Course Center: 109 LeConte Hall Reading Room: 1st Floor LeConte

Lecture: Mon./Wed./Fri. 8:00 am – 9:00 am (ugh!) 50 Birge

TeleBears info: LEC: 001 CN: 28845

Discussion Section*: Monday 9:00 am – 10:00 am† 166 Barrows

TeleBears info: SEC: 101 CCN: 28846

Discussion Section*: Wednesday 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm 166 Barrows

TeleBears info: SEC: 102 CCN: 28847

*to receive course credit, you must enroll in the lecture and
ONE of the discussions; you are encouraged to attend EITHER discussion
†we hope to change the meeting time for the Monday section
**Discussion sessions meet weekly starting in the second week.
***Concurrent enrollment students should speak with instructor.

Units: 4 (standard for a required, upper-division, non-lab physics core course)

Final Exam Group: group 1 (Monday, May 07, 2018, 8:00 am – 11:10 am)

Prerequisites: Physics 5A,B,C or Physics 7A,B,C; Math 1A,B; Math 53;

Math 54 or Physics 89; or prior consent of the instructor.
Physics 112
Textbooks: F. Reif, Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics [required]

(supplemental): C.J. Adkins, Equilibrium Thermodynamics (3rd Edition),

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012 [online]

(supplemental): Ian Ford, Statistical Physics: An Entropic Approach

New York: Wiley, 2013 [online]

(supplemental): Ralph Baierlein, Thermal Physics.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999 [online]

(supplemental): R.K. Pathria and Paul D. Beale,, Statistical Mechanics (3rd Edition)
Oxford: Academic Press, 2011 [online]

(supplemental): R. Sekerka, Thermal Physics: Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

for Scientists and Engineers. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2015 [online]

(supplemental): M.S. Shell, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics: An Integrated Approach.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015 [online]

(supplemental): Keith Stowe, An Introduction to Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

(2nd Edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 [online]

(supplemental): David Tong: Lectures on Statistical Physics

University of Cambridge (unpublished notes), 2015 [online]

Catalog
Description: Physics 112 Introduction to Statistical and Thermal Physics

Basic concepts of statistical mechanics, microscopic basis of thermodynamics

and applications to macroscopic systems, condensed states, phase
transformations, quantum distributions, elementary kinetic theory of
transport processes, fluctuation phenomena.

Grading: Approximately 50% Homework, 20% Midterms (2), 30% Final Exam
(But see below for specific details—assignments on which you perform better
will be weighted more heavily, and an optional enrichment activity can boost
your overall numerical score).

Homework will be assigned approximately weekly to bi-weekly, due in the

Physics 112.1 box in the LeConte Hallway by 6:00 pm Friday unless otherwise
indicated. Reading assignments will also be listed on each assignment.

Both midterms are scheduled during additional evening sessions for

somewhat less time pressure. Contact the instructor immediately if you
cannot make the times suggested on the official syllabus.

The final exam will definitely be cumulative, but will tend to emphasize
material subsequent to the midterms, as well as key themes, ideas, tools,
and models from throughout the semester.
THEMATIC OVERVIEW:

“Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don't understand it at all. The
second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third
time you go through it, you know you don't understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it
doesn't bother you any more.”

—Arnold Sommerfeld

“The Laws of Thermodynamics smell of their human origin.”

—P.W. Bridgman

"Et ignem regunt numeri." (Even fire is ruled by number).

—Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier, quoting Plato.

Physics 112 is an upper-division, one-semester core course providing a rigorous introduction to the core
concepts and tools of classical equilibrium thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and the microscopic
and statistical basis of thermal physics. Applications will include ideal classical and quantum gases,
blackbody radiation, phonons in solids, magnetism, polymers, first and second order phase transitions
and phase mixtures, chemical reactions, binary mixtures and solutions, defects or vacancies in solids,
and possibly superfluidity, semiconductors, interacting fluids or other systems, as well as elementary
kinetic theory and a first very brief look at non-equilibrium phenomena if time permits.

Loosely speaking, thermodynamics (``thermo'' for short) concerns the bulk properties of matter and
fields, and the processes by which these properties are changed, particularly involving the
interconversion, transfer, transformation, and degradation of energy. Statistical mechanics ("stat mech"
for short) in turn locates these macroscopic thermodynamic relations in the average or aggregate behavior
of the microscopic constituents when inevitably we can only acquire, access, or process limited
information about the physical state of the system. Some authors speak of "statistical thermodynamics"
to emphasize the overlap and connections between these intertwined subjects.

Broadly viewed, thermal physics is one of the most beautiful and profound and certainly one of the
most useful areas in all of the natural sciences. The formalism is elegant, its foundations are subtle, its
methods are powerful, and its tools and results find broad application. It serves to connect in essential
ways the classical and quantum microphysics of particles and fields to real-world materials and systems
and measurements. Probably no other area of physics is more widely used by scientists and engineers.
Thermal effects are truly ubiquitous—no experiment ever has or ever will be performed at zero
temperature. In some sense all real-world physics is thermal physics.

Application of statistical and thermal physics abound throughout virtually every sub-field of science,
including atomic physics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, particle physics, electromagnetism
and optics, fluid dynamics, and plasma physics, as well as material science, metallurgy, astronomy,
cosmology, geology, meteorology, climatology, chemistry, biology, physiology, and of course also civil,
mechanical, electrical, chemical, and communications engineering, and even economics and computer
science and pure and applied mathematics. Practical benefits pervade our modern life.
Thermodynamics is essential in understanding materials, predicting our weather, and in improving our
factories, foundries, power plants, and chemical processing facilities, our heating and air conditioning
and refrigeration systems, our planes and trains and automobiles, and even our computers and
cellphones and other electronic devices.
Not only is the field of thermodynamics useful, and ubiquitous, it is also universal. Among the most
beautiful aspects of classical thermodynamics are the logical rigor of its arguments and the generality of
its conclusions. Many of its tools and fundamental relations concerning the observable macroscopic
behavior of systems are actually in many respects largely independent of most of the specific
microscopic details, of how precisely matter and/or light behave and interact, so relatively little had to
be modified when shifting from classical to quantum mechanical pictures. Einstein once wrote: “A
theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises, the more different kinds of things
it relates, and the more extended its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression that classical
thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content which I am
convinced will never be overthrown, within the framework of applicability of its basic concepts.” In a
similar vein, Arthur Eddington declared: “the law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the
supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the
universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations.
If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well, these experimentalists do bungle things
sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you
no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

Because of its universal nature, and its core concerns regarding the conservation and transformation of
energy, thermodynamics has perhaps been more instrumental than any other field in improving the
material culture of humankind. “No other part of science has contributed as much to the liberation of
the human spirit as the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” wrote chemist P.W. Atkins. Although a
precise vocabulary or mathematical formalism may have been long lacking until the formalization of
thermodynamics in late 18th through the early 20th centuries, curiosity about our qualitative sensations
of heat and cold, and connections to changes in observable material properties, surely goes back to the
dawn of humanity. And practical questions of how much useful work a given system can perform under
various conditions or in various environments, and of how best to go about extracting this energy, are as
old as human civilization itself, with its domestication of draught animals and the invention of fire,
wheels, sailboats, water and wind mills, and so forth.

Formal speculation about these ideas dates at least to the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, or possibly
even earlier, to the ancient Egyptians. The quantitative theoretical treatment of these issues may be
traced back at least to the beginning of the science of thermodynamics, to the pioneering work of
Benjamin Thomson, Joseph Black, Sadi Carnot, and others in the early days of the Industrial Revolution,
fueled by interest in contemporaneous engineering developments surrounding steam pumps and steam
engines by figures such as Newcomen, Watt, and Boulton, and then to the subsequent scientific insights
of Joule, Mayer, Helmholtz, Clausius, Clapeyron, Rankine, Kelvin, Kirchoff, Wien, Rayleigh, Jeans, van
der Waals, and others. Connections can also be drawn to the earlier explorations of gas laws by
Charles, Gay-Lussac, Amontons, Avogadro, Boyle, Bernoulli, etc, and the insights and experiments of
other early chemists such as Dalton, Lavosier, and Davy, as well as later work in cryogenics and
liquefaction by Dewar, Linde, Claude, London, Onnes, Weiss, Kapitsa, and others, all made possible by
the invention and refinement of suitable measurement instruments, particularly barometers,
thermometers, and calorimeters, by a number of figures, among them Galileo, Torricelli, Santorio,
Biancani, Sagredo, Drebbel, Fludd, Huygens, Leurechon, Wilcke, Fahrenheit, Celsius, Berthelot, and
subsequent inventors.

Based on the insights of Maxwell and Boltzmann in kinetic theory, the seminal work of Gibbs, and then
subsequent refinements by Einstein, Planck, Poincare, Nernst, Debye, Bose, Fowler, Lewis, Landau, and
others who followed the path from thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, we increasingly understand
concepts such as heat, work, energy, and entropy, as well as various other macroscopic properties of
bulk matter and the relationships between mechanical and thermal properties, in terms of a powerful
marriage of probability theory and microphysics rooted in the atomic nature of matter.
In our present era, with the looming possibilities of dwindling hydrocarbon reserves and possible
environmental costs associated with continuing to burn what is left of them, these enquiries are at least
as pressing as in the age of the steam engine.

In your courses in mechanics, you will typically have studied the behavior of a small number of point
particles or idealized rigid bodies, and assumed both initial conditions and forces were exactly known.
But the real world is made up of a huge number of tiny particles and atoms, and here we begin to
examine in detail consequences of that fact, of the dynamics of systems consisting of so many small
parts that we cannot possibly track all of their positions and momenta, and would not know what to
make of the plethora of information if we somehow could follow them all individually. What emerges is
a more quantitative analysis of the intuitive, qualitative notions of "hot" and “cold,” an understanding of
the reasons why heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold objects but not the reverse, of why
bouncing balls come to rest but resting balls do not spontaneously begin to bounce, of why Humpty-
Dumpty could not be put back together again, and of the opportunities for and limitations on extracting
useful work from various energy sources.

However, it is often, if mistakenly, claimed that statistical mechanics only applies to systems with a large
quantity of particles. Statistical mechanics should not be conflated with many-body physics, despite
some conceptual overlap. Of course it will be impractical to track in detail a macroscopic number of
degrees of freedom, but the tools of statistical mechanics (if not necessarily various asymptotic
approximations) apply more broadly, in any situation where we have less than maximal information
about a physical system. In fact, statistical mechanics may be broadly defined as the study of
incompletely specified physical systems, of any size and any sort. With growing interest in
nanotechnology and biophysics, statistical mechanical concepts and tools will be increasingly applied
to systems with only a few or even one molecule of interest.

And because, from this perspective, statistical mechanics is in fact as much an application of inductive
and probabilistic inference as it is a branch of physics per se, again rather little of the formalism itself has
to change to accommodate the shift in our microphysical picture, from classical physics to quantum
physics, or from Newtonian to relativistic dynamics. Furthermore, the same sort of ideas are starting to
be applied to problems outside of physics proper, in fields such as image processing, machine learning,
and economics.

According to Joseph Fourier, the last words of Pierre-Simon Laplace were "Ce que nous connaissons est
peu de chose, ce que nous ignorons est immense." What we know is not much. What we do not know
is immense. This not only nicely expresses the admixture of curiosity and humility with which we
should approach all science, but might serve as the motto for statistical mechanics in particular, which is
about making the best predictions we can from limited information. (Perhaps not coincidently, Laplace
himself was a pioneer in the application of mathematical probability to physical and astrophysical
problems).

As we proceed this semester, we will come to understand something of the fundamental rules that
govern the operation of the power plant that delivers the electricity to light your lamp, the car or bus
that takes you around town, the jet airplane that takes your around the world, the electronics that
increasingly pervade and organize our lives, the furnace that heats your house, the refrigerator that
preserves your food and the oven that cooks it, and even the chemical reactions that turn sunlight into
that food and food into, well, you, and everything you do. The path to correctly defining and
distinguishing heat and work, and disentangling the notion of heat from energy, entropy, and
temperature, was at times convoluted and arduous, and still not entirely free from misunderstanding or
controversy. To this day, if you want to start an argument amongst physicists, just ask them either about
their interpretation of quantum mechanics, or else about the meaning of entropy and the origin of the
Second Law. This semester you can cultivate your own understanding and interpretation, and debate
with you peers.
In furthering our exploration the physical world, this course will rely heavily on various mathematical
tools, techniques, and formalisms, a few of which may be new to you. As Galileo himself wrote,
“Natural Philosophy is written in that great book which lies ever before our eyes—I mean the Universe—
but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is
written. It is written in the language of mathematics, … without whose help it is impossible to
comprehend a single word of it, and without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.”
Mathematics provides a natural quantitative and symbolic language for physics as well as powerful tools
for tackling specific type of problems, but mathematical formalism itself is intended to enhance, not
replace, our physical understanding and intuition. We should neither be so intimidated by nor
enamored with the math that we lose sight of the physical content. “Any mathematical formalism must
keep the physical problem clearly in focus,” advised Maxwell. As much as anyone, Maxwell also
pointed to the essential role to be played by probability theory in thermal physics, noting: “the true
logic for this world is the calculus of Probabilities.”

Over the course of the semester, we hope that you will enjoy your first in-depth look at these fascinating
if challenging subjects, and gain: a working understanding of key concepts and themes; insight into not
just the what but the how and why of the underlying principles, some facility with the associated
conceptual, logical, mathematical, and experimental tools and problem-solving techniques; an
appreciation for the great theoretical ideas and great experiments that drove progress in these areas of
physics; an awareness of how this material relates both to your previous studies and to the workings of
the everyday natural and manufactured world around you; and a solid preparation for further upper-
division or graduate study in physics, chemistry, biology, or engineering.

Also, after some of the details inevitably fade, we hope you are left with a deeper sense, more generally,
of how one can “think like a physicist" — the combination of rationalism and empiricism, rigor and
creativity, abstraction and practicality, simplicity and complexity, mathematical and non-mathematical
expression, collective and individual effort, that characterizes our approach to critical-thinking and
problem-solving.

BACKGROUND and PREPARATION

We shall definitely presume knowledge of Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, elementary

quantum theory, as well as thermodynamics, kinetic theory of ideal gases, and heat conduction at the
level of Physics 5 or Physics 7. On one or two occasions, we will make use of a few simple results from
special relativity, which you may or may not have studied in Physics 5 or 7, but do not worry if this is
new. Some mathematics will be introduced or reviewed as needed, but we will definitely presume some
familiarity with: logarithms and exponentials; complex arithmetic and algebra; differential and integral
calculus of one variable; limits and Taylor expansions; simple first-order and second-order differential
equations; partial differentiation, total differentials, and chain rules, partial integration and multiple
integration; some basic linear algebra; and some basic combinatorics and probability theory.

Although not required by us or by the Berkeley Physics department, taking the other core courses—
particularly Physics 105, Physics 110A, and Physics 137A—before taking Physics 112 would likely
enhance and enrich your appreciation and understanding of this material. If you have completed some
of these courses, you are of course welcome to ask questions in class or office hours to help clarify
connections between these subjects. However, we will not presume all of this background in general,
but will briefly introduce, or review, a bit of classical and quantum mechanics or electromagnetism
beyond the Physics 5/7 level, when and as needed.
COURSE SYLLABUS

See the separate Schedule and Syllabus document posted online (on our bCourses website) for a more
detailed, if still tentative, course syllabus and weekly schedule. This is our first educated guess at our
schedule, but may be revised as we proceed. Be sure to pay attention to announcements and suggested
reading in class or on the homework assignments.

Roughly speaking, after a few logistical preliminaries and quick overview to orient ourselves and point
out a few recurrent themes, in the first weeks we will delve into the basics of classical equilibrium
thermodynamics, to which we will then periodically return throughout the semester, often relying on the
ideal gas as out prototypical example of a “working fluid,” occasionally contrasting with non-ideal gases
and other systems. While we will not dwell too long on purely classical thermodynamics, we will get a
flavor for the formal axiomatic development, before turning to its statistical underpinnings.
Thermodynamics is an austerely beautiful subject, and an extremely important one in making
connections between theory and experiment and in understanding general features and
interrelationships of the thermal and mechanical behavior of materials and fundamental constraints on
the conversion and transformation of energy and the relations between heat and work. But the
underlying meaning and explanations for the laws of thermodynamics can be somewhat obscure, and
the precise functional forms assumed by the state variables and equations of state, etc. remain
unexplained.

So next we will turn to statistical mechanics, based on combining probabilistic reasoning and atomistic
microphysics. This will require a quick review of probability and combinatorics, as well as a bit of
classical and quantum mechanics, before exploring the fundamentals and formalisms in the context of
the microcanonical, canonical, and grand canonical ensembles, using simple models such as spin
systems and the perfect gases as our principle examples, before turning to more complicated examples
and phenomena for the remainder of the course, including blackbody radiation, Fermi-Dirac and Bose
gases, phonons in solids, plasmas, polymers, chemical reactions, solutions, alloys, and other
heterogeneous systems.

Throughout, we will endeavor to cultivate a careful conceptual understanding, a facility with

fundamental mathematical tools, and familiarity with important (if somewhat idealized) models and
experimental systems. Perhaps more than in most physics courses, in thermal physics we often confront
a gap between conceptual foundations and rationale, and actual application of the mathematical
formalism and analytical tools to actual problems, but we will endeavor to explore both, so that we
might avoid blind application of mathematical machinery on the one hand or overly formal formalism
unconnected to the real world on the other.

A few of the sub-topics and examples that traditionally might have been covered in Physics 112 will
sadly have to be skipped because of Berkeley’s revised calendar, with a shortened instruction period
making room for the “RRR” week. In particular, we will skip examples such as Big Bang nucleosynthesis,
superconductivity, or semiconductor physics, and only very briefly touch on non-equilibrium kinetic
theory and statistical mechanics. To be honest, our understanding of non-equilibrium thermodynamics
does not yet enjoy the logical unity and coherence of equilibrium theory, but is a bit of a mishmash of
ideas involving stochastic processes, kinetic theory, and phenomenological conjectures, so it is hard to
summarize or explore in an already busy course. And for the most part we shall leave for your graduate
courses advanced techniques such as second quantization or other field theoretic tools, Green
functions, and diagrammatic expansions, and important modern topics such as critical phenomena and
the renormalization group, apart from an introductory discussion of the Ising model.

We will mostly spend RRR week reviewing material and doing practice problems in preparation for the
final exam, but we will use one lecture to explore an advanced topic just for fun (not tested) and general
interest. The class will be polled later in the semester; but possible topics include: critical exponents,
chaos theory and statistical mechanics, Monte Carlo simulation, alternative energy, superconductivity,
thermodynamics of black holes, or Maxwell’s Demon and the thermodynamics of computation.

COURSE ORGANIZATION, REQUIREMENTS, and GRADING POLICIES

Lectures:

While there is no official contribution to your course grade, you are responsible for all material and
methods covered in lecture unless otherwise noted, regardless of whether it is discussed explicitly in the
textbooks. Alas, lectures occur at a somewhat uncivilized hour —but if there are volunteers we can plan
for a “Snack Friday,” supplying a bit of sugar to help keep us awake.

Lectures provide an opportunity for us to elaborate, explicate, and explore together the course material,
hopefully see some fun animations and demonstrations, and of course most importantly seek
clarifications and ask questions in a dynamic, interactive way. You are definitely encouraged to ask
questions at any time in lecture — if you are confused by something, or interested in hearing more about
something, someone else probably is too.

We will also present a bit of context and history, to give you some appreciation for the key figures in our
drama, the great experiments and theoretical ideas, and how they arose. I hope that learning a bit about
the development and context of thermal physics will helps to clarify the material and deepen our
appreciation and understanding of it. This is perhaps particularly important in a field like
thermodynamics, where understanding of concepts like entropy and reversibility was hard won.

I also believe it is important for students to realize that physics is not all about canned problems with
answers in the back of a book—that science is accomplished by real people, who first have to perceive
even which questions to ask, and then tentatively grope forward toward the uncertain answers. Of
course, with the benefit of hindsight, we do not have to slavishly follow the historical arc of the subject.
We can save time and avoid confusion by glossing over some of the inevitable false leads and missteps,
and the inspired if incomplete ideas that gradually brought some clarity to a subtle subject. But then
again, facing the same sort of puzzles and struggles encountered by the pioneers of the subject can be a
good way to learn.

Reading:

While there is also no official contribution to your grade, we shall expect you to keep up with all the
required reading, listed in the syllabus as well as on each week’s homework assignment. Material
discussed in the assigned reading may appear on homework or exams even if not explicitly covered in
lectures.

All required reading will be from our required textbook or else posted or linked online. We will also list
recommended reading that we think could enhance your understanding of certain topics, and
suggested reading that may be helpful, or at least interesting, for students wishing to learn about certain
topics in greater depth. Specific relevant readings may be mentioned in class, but always at the
beginning of each week's homework assignment.

There is really no substitute for careful, deliberate, and active reading (and re-reading!) in studying
physics, and that takes time. In a perfect world, you should try to complete the reading before the
material is covered in lecture, and bring up questions or points of confusion during lecture, then re-read
after lecture but before or while attempting homework problems to solidify your understanding. This
gives you a chance to use the potential for feedback and interaction possible in lecture to discuss those
aspects of the textbook presentation which were less than clear.
To get the most from your time spent reading, reflect carefully about what you are seeing, constantly ask
yourself questions, make connections with what you already know, push and stretch your
comprehension, and have paper and pencil handy to work through some of the calculations and try out
examples as you go through the text. Simply following along passively will not work as well.

For physics 112, it had been traditional to use the text by Kittel (a former Berkeley professor) and
Kroemer (a Nobel Laureate). While it is has an un-intimidating tone and does some things in very
elegant fashion, on the whole it is rather incomplete in its coverage and explanations and somewhat
terse and un-rigorous in what it does cover, so I have instead decided to use Frederick Reif's (also a
former UC Berkeley professor) textbook, Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics. Reif sometimes
errs in the other direction, seeming a bit too serious, expansive, and dense. Somewhat uncharitably,
some have joked that with Kittel & Kroemer, you do not learn anything until you complete the problems,
but with Reif, you are lucky to make it to the problems. Reif can be a bit slow-going, but I think the
investment pays off.

There are something like four different printings of Reif, but they use they same text and problems, so
you may want to pick up a used copy rather than pay the ridiculous MSRP.

Reif is now a half-century old, so I have also chosen some more contemporary supplementary texts
covering thermodynamics and statistical mechanics—which are freely (and legally) available online for
Berkeley students, so that you so not have to pay for yet another textbook. Needless to say, we will not
read every chapter in all the books, but hopefully we can make use of some of the best parts of each (for
example, Adkins on classical thermodynamics, or Shell on chemical reactions and solutions), and we
encourage students to choose which treatment they find most useful amongst various online
possibilities. We may also suggest reading form the unpublished lecture notes of David Tong, a noted
professor and instructor at Cambridge University. Books will be available online, or can be found in the
library. We may also distribute or link to various other readings from time to time on bCourses, and may
also distribute some lecture notes. All of the online sources will be intended to supplement, not
supplant, the required reading.

Many of the readings posted on bCourses will contain copyrighted material, and are available
electronically to members of the UC Berkeley academic community only through special agreements
with the publishers. Please respect the intellectual property of other scholars, and do not re-distribute
these materials to anyone outside of our class.

Discussion Sections:

All students are required to enroll in one of the two discussion sections associated with the lecture, and
are highly encouraged to attend regularly and participate fully in the discussions. Regardless of official
enrollment, you may attend either discussion section, provided there are seats available.

In section, You can pose questions to us about the homework or other areas of interest or concern. We
may give some brief tutorials to supplement the regular lectures. Students may present solutions to their
peers (see below). But mostly you will work together as a class or in small groups on examples and
problems, under our guidance.

Sections will be primarily question-driven and problem-based, and will provide a forum for us to work
together to put into practice material from the readings and lectures. Just like learning how to play a
sport like tennis, or a musical instrument such as the saxophone, learning how to do physics requires a
lot of practice. To benefit most from the discussion sections, some preliminary reading and grappling
with the week’s homework may be useful before you arrive, but the most important thing is to attend
regularly and be prepared to engage with the material and with your fellow students.
Lecture offers insufficient time to go through many examples in depth, so we regard discussion section
as an essential part of the course, giving students the opportunity to ask questions, discuss ideas, and
think about problems in an active way. While the lectures will tend to be a bit ore conceptual and
theoretical, in discussion section, we will work through some examples, and reinforce some important
tools and approaches, illustrate practical and problem-solving tips, and point out common mistakes and
potential pitfalls. Remember that merely watching the instructor solve a problem on the board is not an
effective or efficient way to learn physics, so we will give you some time to discuss the problems with
your peers as well.

Office Hours:

Office hours are of course optional, but everyone is welcome and encouraged to come. Even if you do
not have a specific question in mind, you may benefit from the discussion, or be inspired by others'
enquiries. Based on some suggestions from previous semesters, I will also experiment with some "virtual"
office hours, where I will be available to answer questions online.

We will try to choose office hours to maximize attendance and convenience, but weighted toward the
end of the week since problem sets will be due on Fridays. If you wish to discuss your grades or speak
privately, we can also schedule an individual appointment.

RRR Week:

We expect to meet for both lectures and discussion sections during RRR week. Lectures will include a
combination of review and practice, as well as a topic purely for fun and enrichment — it will not be
tested. Currently I am thinking about one of the following: critical exponents, chaos theory and
statistical mechanics, Monte Carlo simulation, alternative energy, superconductivity, thermodynamics of
black holes, or Maxwell’s Demon and the thermodynamics of computation We will vote on a topic later
in the semester.

Homework:

Problem sets will be assigned on an approximately weekly basis, approximately one week in advance.
Assignments will be posted electronically, and will be due in the box labeled "Physics 112.1” in
LeConte on the following Friday by 6:00 pm, unless otherwise noted. Each assignment will include
optional practice problems in addition to required problems. Some of these practice problems will just
provide extra opportunities to explore the material and solidify your skills, and others will be problems
considered to be especially challenging, or to cover supplementary subjects. Ideally, homework will
explore material covered during the previous week’s lectures and reading, but with our tight schedule
this will not always be possible in practice.

You are welcome, even encouraged, to use computational environments such as Mathematica or
MATLAB to assist with algebra or integration, making series expansions, plotting, exploring solutions to
differential equations, etc.—just acknowledge resources where appropriate in your solutions.

Grappling with challenging homework is at the heart of the educational experience, and is essential to
solidifying your own understanding of the course material and to developing your own critical-thinking
and problem-solving skills. As we see it, the purposes of the homework assignments are multifold: to
give you specific practice on the material covered in lectures, discussions, and the readings, to help you
better understand the concepts and become more facile with the calculations; to provide you and us
with meaningful feedback on your comprehension, revealing what you are finding difficult or easy, and
what we may be communicating effectively or not; and to improve your general skills of thinking clearly
and carefully about physics, of creative and technical problem-solving within physics, and effective
communication to others of your understanding of physics.
Working earnestly on the homework is one of the best ways to learn the material and prepare for the
exams. That being said, what makes a good homework problem is not necessarily what makes a good
in-class exam problem, so exam problems may not be exactly like homework problems. Homework
problems serve to reinforce, integrate, develop, or extend your understanding, while exams are intended
primarily to measure or reflect your knowledge applied in slightly novel situations.

We will grade the homework with these goals in mind. Specifically, on each graded homework
problem, 50%, but only 50%, of your score will be directly based on how well and completely you
solved the problem, using a holistic grading scale. An additional 30% of your score will be based on
the clarity, organization, and effectiveness of your written presentation and explanations, and an
additional 20% will be based on your assessment and analysis of the problem — a brief discussion as to
whether your answer makes sense, and why, or what you learned from it, or how it connects to other
things you have learned in this class or in other physics classes. In this way we hope to encourage you
to use the homework as a means to improve your skills of critical thinking and problem solving,
analytical reasoning, and cogent writing.

The GSI’s time is best spent talking with you in person or online, and doing problems with you, rather
than spending countless hours assessing the minutiae of your problem sets. Therefore, you will not find
a lot of red ink on your individual assignments, and each week he may grade in detail only a
representative sub-sample of the required problems, chosen at the discretion of the GSI or me. Of
course, you do not know which problems will be graded, so you should try to complete all the required
problems. To help mitigate some sampling error, each assignment’s score will also include some points
based on our assessment of the overall completeness of your submission. Success in a class like this is
typically highly correlated with conscientious effort put into the homework.

For more details on this grading scheme, see the Homework Grading Philosophy, Rubric, and Feedback
Policies document posted on bCourses.

You do not have to turn in any of the optional practice problems, but you are encouraged to look at
them if you have the time. We will post detailed solutions online for all of the required problems, so
you can see what we had in mind, compare with your own work, and ensure that you understand all
the assigned problems, not just those that were graded in detail.

Your homework score H (expressed as a percentage of the maximum points possible) will be based on a
weighted average of your homework percentages, after your lowest-performing homework is dropped,
using specified weights reflecting the estimated length and/or difficulty of the assignment (not just the
raw number of total problems or graded problems). Otherwise, no late homework will be accepted for
credit without prior consent of the instructor (me) or the GSI.

Generally, we tend to be somewhat disinclined to accept late homework solutions from students, except
for reasons such as official university activities, illness or unavoidable medical problem, graduate school
visits, or scientific conferences. However, please contact us if any issue does arise.

Online Presence:

Homework assignments, solutions, handouts, notes, suggested reading, some fun applets or videos and
interesting websites, etc., will all be posted on our main website hosted on bCourses. Important
announcements will be made in class and on bCourses, which should also send out email notifications
when assignments or other important handouts are posted. You should check our site regularly for
additions or updates. Our bCourses site also has chat and forum capabilities will allow you to interact
online, but we have also set up messaging through piazza.com, so that students can post questions and
comments on homework or other subjects, arrange study groups, etc., there if desired. In past semesters,
students have also set up Facebook pages. Please be inclusive if you do, and invite all students to join.
Examinations:

Midterms:

There will be two closed-book “midterms” [sic], tentatively planned to be administered in the evening to
allow for somewhat less time pressure.

Midterm #1 (tentatively scheduled March 2) will cover introductory thermodynamics and the basic
formalism of statistical mechanics . Midterm #2 (tentatively scheduled April 5) will cover topics
discussed since the first midterm, particularly classical and quantum gases, blackbody radiation, etc.—
but obviously must also build on foundational material.

Exams are scheduled for additional, evening time-slots to offer more time, and somewhat less anxiety.

To each midterm, you are allowed to bring an electronic calculator without wireless capabilities, and
one double-sided, 8.5" X 11" sheet of handwritten notes.

You should also bring a pen or pencil (we recommend pencils) and a blank, large-format bluebook. A
straightedge/ruler can be useful fro sketching graphs or diagrams. Quiet snacks or drinks are allowed.

On exams, we will not grade explicitly on presentation as in the homework, but to maximize your
chances at partial credit, it is of course helpful to offer concise explanations for what you are doing, or
would do if you had more time, and be as clear and organized as possible within the constraints of a
timed exam. Whenever a "what?" or a "when?" is asked in physics, keep in mind that, implicitly, we are
also asking "how?" and why?” Remember that the primary purpose of an exam is not necessarily to write
down the right answer, but to demonstrate what you have learned, and convince the instructors that you
know what you are doing.

Each part of each problem on each midterm will be graded holistically, and your midterm scores M1
and M2 will reflect the points earned as a percentage of the maximum number of points possible.

Final Exam:

A comprehensive, cumulative, closed-book, final exam will be given during the scheduled exam session
Actually, you will be given a full three hours to complete the exam starting so expect that the exam will
run a few minutes late.

You will be allowed an electronic calculator (without wireless capabilities) and three double-sided 8.5"
X 11" pages of handwritten notes. You must bring pencils or pens and one or two blank, large-format
bluebooks. A straightedge may also be useful.

Everything covered in the class (in lecture, discussion, required reading, or required homework) is fair
game on the final, unless otherwise indicated, although the exam will likely tend to emphasize
fundamental concepts and themes stressed repeatedly throughout the semester, and may include in
somewhat excess proportion any material covered after the second midterm.

Each part of each problem on the final will be graded holistically, and your final exam score F will
reflect the points earned as a percentage of the maximum number of points possible.
 “Re-Grade” Requests

When we return your exams or assignments in discussion section, please look it over together with the
solutions posted online, and ask one of us if you have any questions. Any errors of accounting or
arithmetic (e.g., not adding up your points correctly), should be brought to our attention immediately,
and any such mistakes discovered by you and brought to our attention will never lower your grade.
Any disagreements of interpretation can be discussed with us. Actual requests to re-evaluate a response
to an exam question may be considered, but keep in mind that when you ask us to take a second look
and re-judge your performance, we will look critically at the entire exam, and your score can go down as
easily as up.

Exam Score:

Your total exam score X will be calculated as follows:

First, your Midterm Score M will be calculated as the weighted average of your two midterm
percentages, such that your higher-scoring exam counts for twice as much as your lower-scoring exam:

1 2
M= 3 min[M1 , M2 ] + 3 max[M1 , M2 ] ,

giving you the opportunity to make up some points on one midterm if you do less well on the other.

Your exam score X will then be calculated as the following weighted sum of your midterm score M and
your final exam score F:

X = 35 F + 13 M + 1
15 max[F, M ] ,

meaning your final exam will contribute 2.0 times as much to your exam grade as your combined
midterms if you score better on the final exam, but only 1.5 times as much otherwise.

These nonlinear weightings are intended to alleviate a bit of inevitable exam anxiety and to offer you a
little extra breathing room on any one assignment, or an opportunity to make up for earlier stumbles.
These weightings can only improve your numerical score. Our hope is that we can spend our energies
exploring cool physics, and not worrying over much about point totals.

Optional Enrichment Activity:

In order to take some pressure off of you during in-class exams, and hopefully to enrich your
understanding of electromagnetism and its role in understanding the universe, we offer you an
opportunity (but not an obligation) to replace some of your exam points with points earned on an
optional enrichment activity.

This is intended to give you the opportunity to explore a specific topic of interest to you in somewhat
greater depth, to see how essential electromagnetism remains in contemporary physics and much modern
technology, and alleviate some pressure viz the in-class exams. It can only help your grade, and
omitting it cannot actually lower your grade, so if you feel too busy to complete it, you will not be
penalized, only your exams scores will not be tempered. Hopefully you will enjoy exploring some
aspect of classical mechanics on your own. If you choose a technical topic, it may also help you in
preparing for the final exam.

Each participating student will be assigned a holistic enrichment activity score A, which can replace
some of your exam score, if higher than the latter. Again, this activity is optional in that you will not be
penalized if you choose not to do it, but it can definitely help to boost your overall class score if you
do a reasonable job. Unlike some forms of extra credit, it does not add to your exam points, or
otherwise automatically lower your class score in absolute or comparative terms if you choose not to
participate, but it could be a relatively painless and even fun way to improve your score and obviate
some stress.

Your optional section activity score A, expressed as a percentage of the maximum points possible, will
replace up to 8% of your exam score, and be factored into your final course score as described below,
in a way that will not penalize you if you choose not to do it, but can definitely help to boost your
overall class score if you do a halfway reasonable job. An 8% contribution may not sound like a lot,
but this is often enough to boost your grade by a half-step—for example from a "B+" to an "A–."

For any purely written assignments, your score will be based 50% on accuracy and completeness of
content, and 50% of clarity and style of communication and presentation, and expressed as a
percentage of the maximum points possible. The written assignment should be about 1000–2000
words, and will be due in PDF format via email attachment on the last day of RRR week. The section
presentation option would include both an oral and written sub-score, as discussed below.

Optional Enrichment Activity:

Option A: Book Review

You may read a book of your own choosing, and write a short review or critique of the book, as if for
American Scientist, Physics Today, Scientific American, the American Journal of Physics, or Physics
Education, or similar pedagogical or general interest journal. Was the organization of the book effective?
Was the presentation clear? Were its arguments persuasive? Was the book enjoyable or interesting, and
why? Was the physics correct? Were important topics omitted? For what level of readers, or what type
of class, might the book be useful?

The book can be, for example, another textbook on thermodynamics or statistical mechanics, a semi-
popular or popular account of related physics, or a biography of some key player in our drama, such as
Thomson, Black, Watt, Carnot, Joule, Mayer, Clausius, Kelvin, Boltzmann, Maxwell, Gibbs, Planck,
Einstein, Ehrenfest, etc.

Option B: Puzzling Problem

American Journal of Physics and other pedagogical journals often include in-depth analyses of
particularly subtle, puzzling, counterintuitive, or controversial textbook physics problems in statistical
mechanics. Read a few of these articles to get a sense of how such questions are approached, then write
up a brief analysis of such a problem as if it were to be submitted to AJP.

Option C: Explore Energy and Entropy at the Exploratorium

The San Francisco Exploratorium has a fantastic collection of hands-on demonstrations and exhibits.
Analyze one that relates to thermodynamics, energy, or material science. Be sure to discuss what
approximations or idealizations you must make to model the demonstration. You might also find an
exhibit at the Lawrence Hall of Science, the Chabot Science Center, or, if you happen to find yourself
traveling, at one of the other science museums around the continent (San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle,
Anchorage, Denver, Chicago, Columbus, Portland, St. Paul, Pittsburg, Boston, New York City, Charlotte,
Toronto, etc.)
 Option D: The Two Cultures

In a famous lecture on the “The Two Cultures” in 1959, C.P. Snow said: ”a good many times I have
been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly
educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of
scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could
describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was
asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?”

Whether understood or misunderstood, the Second Law of Thermodynamics has often captured the
imagination of authors and artists, poets and philosophers, and others. Choose a piece of “popular” or
“high” culture—a book, poem, film, TV show, album, etc., that involves entropy or thermodynamics in
some way—and analyze carefully what role the physics plays, and how they get the physics right or
wrong.

Option E: Discussion Section Presentation

Learning physics requires more than passively listening to lectures or reading textbooks. Exactly like
learning to play a sport or a musical instrument, it requires practice, more practice, and active
engagement. With large lectures and sections, it is difficult to give you the opportunities for the kinds of
active, peer-driven learning that education research shows are most effective, but we are going to
experiment with one idea in this direction. During the first 15 minutes of discussion section, a student
or pair of students will discuss and present to the class a solution to one of the previous week’s
homework problems and take questions from the audience.

Here is how it will work. Individual students or pairs of students will sign up in advance for available
slots. (We should have opportunities for every student who is interested to participate). The week
before, the student(s) should discuss with us and agree upon which problem is to be tackled. Students
should photocopy their relevant work before turning it in that Friday, using their write-ups as a starting
point for more extensive notes for their blackboard presentation in section the following week. Based
on their notes and perhaps questions and comments during their presentation and consultation with the
instructors, students will write up and submit a detailed solution and analysis by the end of the week,
which will be shared with the class after any needed further corrections are made. You should plan out
your presentation in advance, and presentations should last 15 minutes.

The student or pair of students will be assigned a holistic grade based on both the in-section
presentation (50%) and write-up (50%) sub-scores. If you are working in pairs, both students should
contribute. As long we feel you made a good effort and put in a respectable amount of time, grading
should be reasonably generous.

Further Grading Policies:

To receive credit in this course, you must be enrolled in the lecture and in one of the discussion
sections. Do NOT take the course if you cannot attend the scheduled final exam for any reason other
than official university business or excused religious activities.

If, due to some severe illness, family emergency, or official university activity, you cannot make one of
the scheduled exam times, please contact us before the exam if at all possible. We will be reluctant to
offer opportunities for make-up exams after the fact, except in the most extenuating circumstances, but
for excused absences we can shift weight to other exams.
 Holistic Grading:

Homework and exam problems (or distinct parts of longer problems), the optional assignment, etc., will
all be graded “holistically,” where we assign you positive points based on our overall, course-grained
assessment of your performance on, and demonstrated understanding of, a given problem. This is
contrast to the traditional subtractive, or "nickel-and-dime" approach, where you are penalized points
here and there for various mistakes or errors of commission or omission. While the description as
“holistic” might strike you as some vague or new-age-ish idea out of Berkeley's hippie culture, much
education research shows that this approach is actually more fair and more reproducible, less prone to
random drifts in grading standards as the instructors grow tired, or to false claims of precision far beyond
any reasonable psychometric justification.

So on your individual assignments you will not see a lot of red ink and fine print offering detailed
explanations of what went wrong, and why. It is your responsibility to look at your assignment and
compare it to the solutions posted online, where we will offer more detailed explanations, derivations,
and calculations. If you still do not understand the problem, or what you did right and wrong, come
and talk to one of us.

Each problem (or possibly part of a longer problem) will therefore receive a score from zero (0) to five (5)
points, typically based on the following 5-point holistic grading scale:

5 = student shows essential mastery of the material and answers all aspects of the question
with essentially no meaningful errors that detract from demonstrated understanding;

4 = student shows good understanding, with some minor or moderate errors or mistakes in
calculation;

3 = student shows reasonable understanding, but with a significant error or omission or major
conceptual misunderstanding, or many minor ones;

2 = student shows some working understanding, but with notable errors or several large
omissions or major conceptual misunderstandings;

1 = student attempted the problem but shows heavily flawed understanding or execution, or
omits a significant portion of the explanation or argument;

0 = student made virtually no meaningful attempt to solve the problem.

You can still receive five points even if your answer is not perfect, but will receive zero points only if
you essentially include nothing at all relevant. Sketch a diagram, tell us what is known and unknown,
or offer any other meaningful attempt at starting a problem, and you can at least earn one point.

Overall Score:

You overall numerical score S will involve a weighted average of your homework score H, exam score X,
and possibly your optional section activity score A.

First, the exam score will be adjusted or augmented by the activity score A if this would help your grade:

X0 = 19
20 X + 1
20 max[X, A],

and then this adjusted exam score is combined with your homework score as follows:
 0
S= 9
20 X + 9
20 H + 1
10 max[X 0 , H] ,

meaning that the exam/homework split is 55%/45% if you score better on the (adjusted) exams than on
homework, but 45%/55% if you do better on homework compared to (adjusted) exams.

These nonlinear formulae may sound complicated, but they are merely designed to weigh somewhat
more heavily those assignments on which you perform best, and encourage us to avoid getting too
distracted by numerical grades so we can focus on the physics.

Grades:

Your course letter grade G will be based on your total numerical score S. In assigning these letter grades,
I do not believe in grade cutoffs based on percentages fixed a priori, (e.g., where an A is strictly 90% or
above, a B is 80%, etc.), because it is virtually impossible to calibrate reasonable expectations and to
assess the length and difficulty of assignments without looking critically at the performance of the class
as a whole. Nor do I believe in pre-arranged percentiles (i.e., "grading on a curve”), where a fixed
fraction of the class necessarily receives A’s, B’s, etc., based on students’ relative ranking but without
regard to their absolute performance. In principle, your grade ought to reflect how well you learned the
material and demonstrated and communicated your understanding to us, not on how the person sitting
next to you might have scored. But in practice, how everyone actually did does inform how individuals
performed. So we do both consider the nature of the various assignments and look to how the class as
a whole performed on the various assignments in order to assess in a reasonably fair way what
constitutes excellent, good, and acceptable performance, etc., and then assign corresponding numerical
cutoffs mapping numerical scores to letter grades.

At UC Berkeley, the officially-stated meaning of the letter grades in terms of academic performance is as
follows:
A = Excellent
B = Good
C = Fair
D = Barely Passing
F = Failed

We will further sub-divide these letter grades using +/– distinctions within each grade category for grades
of D or better, so that, for example, an A+ grade will indicate exceptionally strong performance, and an
A– will indicate very good performance. In our opinion, if a straight D already indicates barely passing
performance, then anything below that constitutes a failing grade, so for example a D– or an F+ grade
would make little sense.

If taking a class pass / no-pass (P/NP), note however that a "P" grade will correspond to the equivalent of
a C– letter grade or better. That is, passing a class taken pass/fail is harder than passing a class taken for
a letter grade. (No, this does not necessarily make much sense to us, either).

Out of a desire to maintain and signal the high standards for education at the University of California,
and to uphold fairness and maintain meaningfulness of grades to students, instructors, other institutions,
and others, UC Berkeley and the Physics Department have established "strongly recommended"
guidelines for the approximate distribution of A's, B's, and C's in any one course. For required upper-
division courses like Physics 110A, these recommendations suggest approximately 35% A+/A/A– grades
and 40% B+/B/B– grades. (Berkeley being Berkeley, together these are lower than the national average
amongst four-year universities, which is currently over 80% A and B grades. Be proud of the grades you
earn here).
That being said, we very much hope that all students ultimately feel that they are being graded based on
their own performance as we can best assess it, and are not in direct competition with their peers.
Typically, in a moderately large physics course like this one, when the spectrum of assignments tests a
diversity of knowledge and skills and provides appropriate challenges, course grades will tend to fall
into something resembling a bell-curve pattern naturally, if for no other reason than due to the
mathematical exigencies of the Central Limit Theorem.

Earning a straight “A” grade will not be easy, but getting a C grade or worse often requires some
deliberate lack of effort in terms of not keeping up with the reading or homework. This course will
demand careful thinking and serious work, move at a fast pace, presume a lot of reading, and offer
challenging homework assignments and exams, but the overall grading is not intended to be punitive or
onerous. If I feel that students have worked hard (which is almost always the case), then I will give as
many A’s and B’s as I can without facing too many admonishing memos from the administration or
uncomfortable meetings with our department chair.

Note that letter grades will not be directly assigned or suggested for individual assignments, but very
approximately, in terms of our holistic grading scale, for a typical exam or homework question, 5 points
corresponds to an A+, 4 to an A, 3 to a B, 2 to a C, 1 to a D, and 0 to an F, but the actual letter grade
correlates will depend on the difficulty of the problem — more challenging problems will tend to have a
more relaxed grading structure. To help you assess your performance in context, we will post some
class-wide statistics after each midterm, and unofficially offer some approximate cutoffs for corresponding
letter grades.

Note that a course grade of "Incomplete" (I) can only be considered under dire circumstances beyond a
student’s control, and only when these circumstances have prevented the student from completing
certain assignments, not merely because performance suffered — and then, according to official
university policy, only when work already completed is of at least "C" quality or better. Students should
contact us directly in the event of any problems or emergencies, as soon as is possible.

Students may also contact the instructor directly to discuss final course grades, but in the absence of
demonstrable errors, usually very little can be done after the fact to justify changes to the officially
posted letter grades. If you are having difficulties keeping up with the material, PLEASE talk to us as
soon as possible, preferably well before an exam, not after the grades are submitted to the university.

Although grades naturally cause much anxiety, and inevitably are imperfect, sometimes even inaccurate
metrics of aptitude, effort, or accomplishment, grades are nevertheless something of a necessary evil by
which we attempt (admittedly, not always successfully) to achieve many educational purposes:

* to provide objective information and feedback on how well students are learning;
* to describe as unambiguously as possible the merit, quality, or value of the work accomplished or
learning achieved;
* to improve the capacity of students to assess and and identify good work—that is, to improve
their self-evaluation or discrimination skills with respect to work submitted;
* to stimulate and encourage effort and completion of quality work by students;
* to inform the instructors as to what students have and have not learned;
* to ensure the quality, reputation, and meaning of an official educational program or degree;
* to communicate the instructor's judgment of the student's progress and preparation
for subsequent instruction or employment;
* to help provide meaningful selection criteria for employment, continued education, or
other professional, academic, economic, or intellectual activities or rewards.
Students sometimes ask: Why are tests so difficult? Exams, and certain homework problems, will be quite
challenging by design, not out of cruelty or a desire to cause you anxiety or frustration, but to: (i) help
push you to deeper comprehension and appreciation of the subject and its subtleties, and (ii) help us
accurately assess your learning. An exam is, in effect, a measurement device (subject, of course, to
measurement error), but like any good instrument, it should take advantage of its full “dynamic range” to
spread out results so as to help better make distinctions.

In other words, if an exam is too easy, then most scores tend to fall in a narrow range, and rather trivial
mistakes can end up having outsized effects. A difficult exam is to your advantage—really. Exam and
homework problems are supposed to be challenging. This is not high school. You are not expected to
score 99% on an exam.

Keep in mind that your grades in this class — or any physics class — are not a reflection of our personal
approval or disapproval, nor our opinions of your personal worth, nor some definitive assessment of
your promise as a future scientist. Many very successful scientists earned less than stellar grades as
undergraduate or graduate students. Everyone who truly grapples with the material and works hard in a
fast-paced and conceptually and mathematically difficult course like Physics 112 will earn our gratitude
and respect.

COLLABORATION and INTELLECTUAL HONESTY

Science is simultaneously both a solitary and collective enterprise. To make progress, we must stand on
the shoulders of giants and mortals alike, and work effectively as part of a team and community, but to
gain deep understanding, we must also ponder alone and calculate and work out some things for
ourselves. It probably takes an entire career to figure out an appropriate balance between collaboration
and individual effort. In this class, we strongly encourage you to study with, interact with, and work
with other students both in and outside of official sections or office hours. Some of the best ways to
learn physics include conversing, brainstorming, and problem-solving with your colleagues about things
you do not understand, and trying to explain to them things you do understand. Research shows that
talking, and even just siting, with others improves learning outcomes, Individuals and overly-
homogeneous groups are often blind to their own biases, but heterogeneous groups can bring to bear a
diversity of ideas. Please go about these activities in a collegial manner, in the spirit of a shared quest.

That being said, you should never just copy material from another student, or book, journal, or website.
This serves little educational purpose, and if unacknowledged, constitutes academic dishonesty. After
engaging and discussing, think about a solution on your own, and write up what you think you
understand in your words. If you do make use of outside resources, give appropriate credit where credit
is due. You may find it useful to use additional books or internet webpages, but cite any additional
written or electronic materials (other than the assigned readings, reference to which is implied) used to
complete your problem sets, and list any students with whom you worked closely. Do not plagiarize
through slavish copying or unreferenced borrowing. It is relatively easy to find solutions to almost any
textbook problem with a few minutes of google searching, but remember that the point of homework is
not for you write down the correct answer, but for you to reinforce or extend your own understanding of
and facility with the material.

During any exam, any discussion with anyone but an instructor or proctor, or use of resources other
than those explicitly listed, or starting the exam early or stopping late, shall constitute academic
dishonesty, and you will receive no credit for the test, and such incidents may be reported for possible
further disciplinary action by the university.

UC Berkeley has now also adopted the following academic honor code: As a member of the UC
Berkeley community, I act with honesty, integrity, and respect for others.
Though the findings of science may be ethically neutral, the activity of science is not: it demands that
those who practice it embrace and conform to a strict set of values and virtues. The hope is that we, as
scholars and scientists, will always adhere to the values alluded to by this honor code, while engaging
our passion for learning and our eagerness to discuss and debate ideas.

ACCOMMODATIONS:

If you require special accommodations due to a persistent medical condition or disability, please first
contact the DSP office, and then contact us as early in the semester as possible so that we can try to
make arrangements.

Normally, assignments can be postponed or re-scheduled only for official university-sponsored activities
(such as team athletic competitions, or artistic performances), for religious observances, for unavoidable
medical situations, or for graduate school admissions or academic conferences. If any issue does arise,
please speak with us at your earliest convenience—before the due date if at all possible.

OTHER RESOURCES:

Some people find thermal physics elegant from the start; others find its assumptions and methods
somewhat austere or unnatural compared to "microphysics" courses like mechanics or electromagnetism.
The material can definitely become conceptually and mathematically challenging, and we will have to
cover a great deal of material very quickly — too quickly, if truth be told.

The course will probably be challenging to all, but If you are experiencing anxiety or having difficulties
keeping up with the work, please do talk to one of us in regularly-scheduled office hours, or make an
appointment to meet with one of us at some other time. My best advice is to address potential troubles
as early as possible, before the exam is upon us or the homework is due, to maximize our opportunities
to discuss and work things out in a meaningful way before it is too late.

Before paying for a tutor, we suggest first making maximal use of our own discussion sessions and office
hours, since your tuition has already paid for these. The Student Learning Center (SLC) typically offers
drop-in tutoring and study groups only for lower-division physics classes, but Claudia Trujillo in the
Student Affairs Office in 376 LeConte, or the Society of Physics Students (SPS) in 145 LeConte, may be
able to provide a list of recommended tutors or suggest additional resources.

Some of your best resources are your peers. Wrestling with the same new material, they may be well
situated to offer helpful suggestions, perspectives, hints, and insights. And there is no better way to
detect shaky skills or solidify your own understanding than to try to explain a concept or a technique to
someone else. Talk to colleagues in or after office hours, arrange your own regular or ad hoc study
groups, post questions or comments online, or stop by the Upper Division Course Center or the Physics
Department Reading Room (on the 1st floor of LeConte) to find colleagues.

The course will likely be challenging to all, but If you are experiencing anxiety or having difficulties
keeping up with the work, please do talk to one of us in regularly-scheduled office hours, or make an
appointment to meet with one of us privately at some other time. My best advice is to address potential
troubles as early as possible, before the exam is upon us or the homework is due, to maximize our
opportunities to discuss and work things out in a meaningful way before it is too late.

Some of your best resources are your peers. Wrestling with the same material, they may be well situated
to offer helpful suggestions, perspectives, hints, and insights. And there is no better way to detect shaky
skills or solidify your own understanding than to try to explain a concept or a technique to someone
else. Talk to colleagues after office hours, arrange your own study groups, post questions or comments
online, or stop by the Course Center or the Physics Department Reading Room to find colleagues.
FEEDBACK & QUESTIONS:

If you find any of our course policies to be unclear, ambiguous, confusing, or unfair, or if you have
questions or concerns, feel free to contact us. Come to an office hour, or make an appointment. Also
contact us with constructive feedback about how the course is going or how it could be improved, even
via an anonymous emailer if you prefer.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

When confused about physics, sometimes all it takes is to read or hear the same material in a different
voice, and something clicks. Different books approach the material in slightly different ways, and what
works well for one student may not be the best presentation for another. Sometimes hearing multiple
phrasings or points of view can be helpful.

There are many textbooks and online resources on classical mechanics, in addition to our required and
recommended texts. Some textbooks will be put on reserve in the department library, or else made
available online. Occasionally, we will post links to particularly useful websites, applets, or articles.
Feel free to search for other materials that might be helpful to you, but remember to read materials with a
somewhat critical eye — mistakes and misunderstandings have been known to find their way onto the
world wide web, particularly when it comes to such topics as the origin of the Second Law, or the arrow
of time.

Introductory Textbooks [first-year level, possibly useful for review of Physics 7-level material]:

D. Halliday, R. Resnick, and J. Walker, Fundamentals of Physics

D. Giancoli, Physics for Scientists and Engineers
S. Borowitz and A.Beiser, Essentials of Physics

“Introductory” Textbook [more challenging than perhaps originally envisioned]:

Richard Feynman, Robert Leighton, Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics

Intermediate Textbooks [comparable to our texts]:

C. Kittel and H. Kroemer, Thermal Physics (2nd Edition)

F. Mandl, Statistical Physics
D. Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics
K. Stowe, An Introduction to Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
F. Sears and G. Salinger, Thermodynamics,, Kinetic Theory, and Statistical Thermodynamics
B. Widom, Statistical Mechanics: A Concise Introduction
H. Callen, Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatics
R. Swendsen, An Introduction to Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics
M. Zemansky, et al., Heat and Thermodynamics
G. Carrington, Basic Thermodynamics
C. Kittel. Elementary Statistical Physics
S. Blundell and K. Blundell, Concepts in Thermal Physics
R. Baierlein, Atoms and Information Theory
M. Bailyn, A Survey of Thermodynamics
T. Guenault, Statistical Physics
M. Sturge, Statistical and Thermal Physics: Fundamentals and Applications
E. Fermi, Thermodynamics
M. Planck, Thermodynamics
E. Schrodinger, Statistical Thermodynamics
J. Sethna, Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity
J.W. Halley, Statistical Mechanics: From First Principles to Macroscopic Phenomena
T.L. Hill, An Introduction to Statistical Thermodynamics
A. Wasserman, Thermal Physics: Concepts and Practice
J. Seddon and J. Gale, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
R. Hardy, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics: An Integrated Approach
R. Swendsen and D. Mattis Statistical Mechanics Made Simple
S.K. Sinha, Statistical Mechanics

Advanced / Graduate Textbooks in Statistical and Thermal Physics [somewhat more in-depth
or more specialized]:

M. Plischke and B. Birgerson, Equilibrium Statistical Physics

L. Landau and E. Lifshitz, Statistical Physics
D. Chandler, Modern Statistical Mechanics
N. Davidson, Statistical Mechanics
R. Feynman, Statistical Mechanics
C. Helrich, Modern Thermodynamics
S.K. Ma, Statistical Mechanics
K. Huang, Statistical Mechanics
D. McQuarrie, Statistical Mechanics
R. Tolman, Principles of Statistical Mechanics
W. Grandy, Foundations of Statistical Mechanics
M. Kardar, Statistical Physics of Particles, Statistical Physics of Fields
H. Leff and A. Rex, Maxwell’s Demon
B. McCoy, Advanced Statistical Mechanics
M. Tuckerman, Statistical Mechanics and Molecular Simulation
W.C. Schieve and L.P. Horowitz, Quantum Statistical Mechanics
F. Schwabl, Statistical Mechanics
W. Krauth, Statistical Mechanics: Algorithms and Computations
D ter Haar, Elements of Statistical Mechanics
W. Greiner, et al., Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
J.E. Mayer, Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics
A. Sommerfeld, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
L. Kadanoff, Quantum Statistical Mechanics
J.W. GIbbs, Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics
T. Tanaka, Methods of Statistical Physics
J. Honerkamp, Statistical Physics
J. Honig, Thermodynamics
H. Struchtrup, Thermodynamics and Energy Conversion
D. Konedupi, Modern Thermodynamics: From Heat Engines to Dissipative Structures
M. de Oliveira, Equilibrium Thermodynamics
R. Hentschke, Thermodynamics: for Physicists, Chemists, and Material Scientists
B. Lavenda, A New Perspective on Thermodynamics
L. Reichl, A Modern Course in Statistical Physics
P.T. Landsberg, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
M. Toda, R. Kubo, and N. Saito, Statistical Physics
 Mathematical Methods:

George Arfken, Hans Weber, and Frank Harris, Mathematical Methods for Physicists
Sadri Hassani, Mathematical Methods for Students of Physics and Other Fields
Donald McQuarrie, Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers
Jon Mathews and Robert Walker, Mathematical Methods for Physics
G. Shutz, Geometric Methods of Mathematical Physics

Some Semi-Popular Books and Biographies:

P.W. Atkins, The Second Law

James Gleick, Chaos
Michael Sharratt and David Knight, Galileo: Decisive Innovator
Michael Moriarty, et al., Galileo: On the Shoulders of Giants
James Maclachlan, Galileo Galilei: First Physicist
George Gamov, Great Physicists from Galileo to Einstein
Clifford Pickover: From Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and Great Minds Behind Them
Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics
J.D. Bernal, A History of Classical Physics
H. Thomas Milhorn, The History of Physics
David Park, The How and the Why
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
H. von Baeyer, Why Warmth Disperses and Time Passes
A. Ben-Naim, Discover Entropy and the Second Law: Interpretation and Misinterpretation
Basil Mahon, The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell
Muriel Rukeyser, Willard Gibbs
Lynde Phelps Wheeler, Josiah Willard Gibbs: The History of a Great Mind
R.J. Seeger, Josiah Willard Gibbs: American Physicists Par Excellence
C. Cercignani and Roger Penrose, Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms
S.J. Watson, Carnot
Oded Kafri, et al., Entropy: God’s Dice Game
William H. Cropper, Great Physicists
Robert Purrington, Physics in the 19th Century
Raymond Flood et al, Kelvin: Life, Labors, and Legacy
Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: a Biography of Lord Kelvin
Osbourne Reynolds, A Biography of James Prescott Joule
Eric Schneider and Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
Peter Atkins, The Laws of Thermodynamics: a Very Short Introduction
Jeremy Rikfkin and Ted Howard, Entropy: A New World View
Arieh Ben-Naim, Entropy and the Second Law
Roger Hughfield and Peter Coveney, The Arrow of Time
Bruce Meyer, The Arrow of Time
D.K.C. MacDonald, Faraday, Maxwell, and Kelvin