Statistical Interpretation of Experiment

Abstract

AS a result of the many-sided developments of the last twenty years, the theoretical physicist has come to draw more and more upon statistical mechanics for the detailed interpretation of experimental results. On opening a recent book with the comprehensive title “Statistical Physics”, one receives then at least a mild surprise to find that the subject is treated in an earlier manner, as a branch of mathematical physics divorced from any detailed connexion with experimental material. The authors evidently decided to give a concise and lucid treatment of a definite field, and they have fulfilled their intention admirably. Since in doing so they have kept within their chosen territory with an inflexibility that is unusual, it is desirable to mention the boundaries of this territory, without implying that these limits are unwelcome limitations.

Statistical Physics

By L. Landau E. Lifshitz. Translated from the Russian by D. Shoenberg. Pp. viii + 234. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1938.) 20s. net.