🧵 Statistical Mechanics is the only field worth studying
Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 10:11:59 UTC No. 16138620
Much like how quantum mechanics is fucking useless (if left pure it devolves into lengthy discussions about ergodicity) and stops being so after you're introduced to atomic physics, much, if not all of physics, greatly benefits from many body problems.
Statistical mechanics is like a well fed horse with a cocaine problem, it runs so fucking fast you'll never even want to go back to cars, it's quite literally the only useful thing physics has shit out since information theory and that was only collateral, to think you can use fucking ensamble theory to model how bird flocks move is the craziest shit you can dream of. (Cont.)
Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 10:24:38 UTC No. 16138627
Only brainlets and the ocassional overconfident (yet kinda retarded) Witten fan would go into anything other than statistical mechanics. It surprises me how few people understand even classical thermodynamics yet think they're the shit because they know ladder operators. The ultimate proof of this degeneracy is how most nobel laureates in the past 10 years have only been experimentalists, the few remarkable people who still do theory do almost exclusively shit that directly relates to stat mech. There's so much to choose from and you choose the stupidest shit in other areas
>The temperature problem
>Non equilibrium thermo being stuck on linear near equilibrium treatment even in gradschool
>Physical chemistry (you know, something applicable)
>Complex systems
>Sociophysics
This is your one and only wake up call anon. There is no other subject in physics that is as interesting as it is profitable as it is burdensome for pseuds to wrap their three synapses around.
TLDR; You can't call yourself a physicist unless you can manage to contribute to statistical mechanics. Every great physicist who revolutionized the world did so.
>Inb4 solid state
Barely passable, do better.
Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 10:29:44 UTC No. 16138632
And as a bonus, entropy gets the same treatment as entropy does in the limelight, yet entropy is actually pretty robust as a concept without having to go into mental masturbation 3 years ahead of you as an undergrad. The sad sad truth is that most "physicists" are shit at thermodynamics and lack physical intuition.
Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 10:30:44 UTC No. 16138634
>>16138632
>entropy gets the same treatment as entropy does in the limelight
spin gets the same treatment-
🗑️ Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 11:02:08 UTC No. 16138682
>>16138620
HAHAHAHA HE POSTED THE MEME AGAIN!!!!
OMG WHAT A CARD!!!!
srsly tho, why so uncreative, boring and predictable? low iq?
Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 12:12:36 UTC No. 16138747
>>16138620
which books to read?
Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 12:36:26 UTC No. 16138782
>>16138620
So you're going finally to make machine that runs on heat in air or water bodies and provide energy with your knowledge?
Anonymous at Sun, 21 Apr 2024 23:21:01 UTC No. 16139557
>>16138682
didn't read but yes
>>16138747
My top five are
>Kardar
Beautifully written and self contained, he starts with thermodynamics. Find his problem sets too.
>Schroeder
Your cool uncle got a PHD and is trying to teach you assuming you're nearly retarded, gumping it (which is good). Disorganized, informal yet intuitive.
>Callen
The bible
>Pathria
Extremely mathematical, and can only be easily understood using another book from this list.
>Prigogine
One of the few people alive who *know* thermodynamics.
>>16138782
No, I'm gonna model sex with your mom as a fluid exchange problem using the grand canonical ensamble.
Anonymous at Mon, 22 Apr 2024 09:22:20 UTC No. 16140229
>>16139557
not the one by Fermi?
Anonymous at Mon, 22 Apr 2024 09:56:39 UTC No. 16140269
>>16139557
So you don't want to do anything for humanity, but still want to be found after "suicide".
Anonymous at Tue, 23 Apr 2024 01:05:40 UTC No. 16141437
>>16140229
Nope, Fermi didn't get thermodynamics as well as the people on that list. My first course on thermo was using his book and it left a lot of holes in my knowledge, particularly about why we care about legendre transforms giving us thermodynamic potentials and what natural variables actually are.
You're way better off with Kardar and Schroeder in that aspect. Kardar ties up the reasonings behind the use of thermodynamic potentials and the use of different ensambles beautifully and schroeder gives you nice ways to think of them using the euler relation.
If you're good at programming and get crafty you're gonna love Schroeder.
>>16140269
Well played, everyone knows the only acceptable respose to a your mom joke is a death threat. Jokes aside I'm still figuring out the balance between what I like, what I'm good at and what makes money so maybe something in finance.
And if I feel philanthropic at some point I'll try predicting forest fires using stochastic resetting. Environmental scientists that don't majorly bother big brother don't get killed as often