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

Course Description

Prerequisite

Two 300-level physics courses or consent of the instructor.

Textbook

Thermal Physics, C. Kittel and H. Kroemer

Topics

The syllabus is listed on the course website although I may not be able to the cover everything listed.    Many of the topics will be familiar from P213 but we'll go into somewhat greater depth with a bit more mathematics.    Jim Wolfe's book, Elements of Thermal Physics, is an excellent introduction to many of the topics. 

Notes

Please check the course website each day for announcements, assignments, solutions and class notes.   The notes are mostly handwritten but hopefully readable.   While I will try to post all the relevant material,  P427 is not an online course and you should absolutely attend class.  

Homework

Homework will be assigned approximately every two weeks.  We will try to return graded problem sets along with solutions one week after that.   Please deposit your homework in the PHYS427 mailbox in the Loomis-MRL interpass.  Late assignments will be marked down 20% for each day beyond the due date.    The homework sets must be clearly written.  There will be a midterm exam, a final and 20 minute in-class quizzes.  While quizzes are not popular, they provide considerable insight into how well you actually understand the material.   They will come about every 2 weeks and will not be announced ahead of time.  You'll be allowed to drop one quiz score.  

Grading

Course Component Percentage of Grade
Homework 30
Midterm Exam 20
Quizzes 20
Final Exam 30

General Information

 There are also other excellent texts available that offer different perspectives.  The books on reserve in the library are listed below, with some comments I hope you find useful.