By Barry M McCoy
Oxford University Press
Hardback: £57.70 $99
Statistical mechanics is the study of systems where the number of interacting particles becomes infinite. Tremendous advances have been made over the past 50 years that have required the invention of entirely new fields of mathematics, such as quantum groups and affine Lie algebras. These have provided profound insights into both condensed matter physics and quantum field theory, but none of these advances are taught in graduate courses in statistical mechanics. This book is an attempt to correct this, beginning with theorems on the existence (and lack) of order for crystals and magnets and with the theory of critical phenomena, it continues by presenting the methods and results of 50 years of analytic and computer computations of phase transitions.
