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Statistical Physics of Crystals and Liquids: A Guide to Highly Accurate Equations of State Duane C. Wallace (World Scientific, 2003) 328 pages, $58.00 ISBN: 981-238-122-0 Duane Wallace’s text fulfills its subtitle of being a guide to building highly accurate equations of state for solid and liquid systems. Beginning from a Hamiltonian treatment, the book includes a tight review and introduction of statistical mechanics and its physical interpretation. The book provides both a historical context as well as recent results with which to make comparisons of predictive models. While the text lacks a treatment of orientational order to complement its treatment of positional order and discussions of solid–solid transitions and melting, the book comprises a brisk overview of solids that reaches timely topics of nonequilibrium processes. While the text is probably not good as a first exposure in a classroom setting, its structure lends itself well to being used as an instructional text in either an advanced undergraduate course or a graduate treatment of the subject. As an instructor, I appreciate the section-by-section listing of exercises that would allow one to include and omit sections without having to determine what problems could then be assigned or not. The review of statistical mechanics is straightforward to anyone with prior exposure to the subject, and is nearly complete, lacking only a discussion on the virial theorem in terms of major topics. Those should not be seen as detrimental shortcomings, however, as Wallace has done an excellent job of achieving the goals set out in the introduction of the book in a format that is clean and easy to read with a notation that is not confusing. My only real criticism of the book is that it ends about a hundred pages sooner than I would have liked. The text establishes a solid foundation of statistical mechanics and a thorough discussion of lattice dynamics including a valuable treatment of nuclear motion, with multiple examples demonstrating strong agreement between the equations of state and measurement from experiments. With such a convincing treatment of well-understood systems, I would have liked to have seen the text continue with more of a discussion of open problems in nonequilibrium systems and the glass transition. Those personal preferences should not take away from what I see as a successful text that delivers on its goals in fine fashion. Reviewer: Jeffrey S. Olafsen is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and MRS BULLETIN • VOLUME 30 • FEBRUARY 2005
Astronomy at the University of Kansas. He does research in nonlinear and nonequilibrium systems and has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in statistical mechanics.
Polymer Physics Michael Rubinstein and Ralph H. Colby (Oxford University Press, 2003) 454 pages, $99.95 ISBN: 0-19-852059-X When you practice in a field, you usually feel that there can never be enough textbooks to choose from, and this new text is certainly a welcome addition to those that are currently available (incl
