[PDF] Statistical Mechanics (Advanced Texts in Physics) Franz Schwabl, William D. Brewer

I took Stat Mech in my senior year of college, and the assigned text book was Reif’s “Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics.” I’m glad somebody recommended that I supplement my course with this one, because it’s a far more thorough handling of the subject.For one thing, it approaches statistical physics with a quantum mechanical point of view (Reif doesn’t). This was immensely useful for my understanding of the subject since I’d already taken QM. It’s also exceedingly easy to read – well laid out and with helpful diagrams. Sections are well labeled and organised, as are equations (yeah, LaTeX!). And the problems at the end of each section are numerous, and fun to do (you won’t find the answers at the back, though).As for the material itself, the entire book takes a deductive approach based on the form of the microcanonical density matrix. It’s a beautifully simple albeit non-standard approach. In fact, the text is peppered with non-standard forms of many of the key equations, which are very interesting.All in all, this is a very well written/translated, easy to understand introduction to statistical physics, with enough additional material to serve you beyond your first course with it.