PHYS 427 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Course Description

Prerequisite

PHYS 213/214 and PHYS 325 or consent of the instructor.

Textbook

Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics, F. Reif

Notes

Please check the course website each day for announcements, assignments, solutions and class notes.   Posted lecture notes are provided courtesy of Yann Chemla and are copyright Chemla 2017.   While the website will be important for the distribution of course material,  PHYS 427 is not an online course. Your grade will depend in part on participation in both lectures and discussions.  

Homework

Homework will be assigned on Wednesdays and will be due the Thursday of the following week.  Assignments will be returned with the solutions one week after that.   Please deposit assignments in the PHYS427 mailbox in the Loomis-MRL interpass before 5 pm on Thursday.  Late assignments will be marked down 20% for each day beyond the due date, i.e., if your raw score is x, your score one day late would be 0.8 x.    The homework sets must be clearly written.  

A few words on our grading scale for problem sets. Every part of a problem is worth 3 points in total (e.g. a three-part problem would be worth 9 points total) and will be scored as follows:

3: perfect solution, devoid of conceptual or technical errors

2.5: solution is conceptually correct, but contains minor mathematical errors (signs, numerical factors, etc.)

2: solution contains minor conceptual errors or larger mathematical errors, but makes good progress towards the correct answer

1: solution contains major conceptual errors and does not make meaningful progress towards the correct answer

0: no attempt at solution

Exams

There will be two in-class midterms and a final.

Grading

Course Component Percentage of Grade
Class Participation 10
Discussion 10
Homework 20
Exam 1 15
Exam 2 15
Final Exam 30

General Information

 There are several excellent texts available that offer different perspectives.  The books on reserve in the library are listed below.