This third edition of Statistical Physics of Complex Systems has been expanded to provide more examples of applications of concepts and methods from statistical physics to the modeling of complex systems. These include avalanche dynamics in materials, models of social agents like road traffic or wealth repartition, the real space aspects of biological evolution dynamics, propagation phenomena on complex networks, formal neural networks and their connection to constraint satisfaction proble...

This course-tested primer provides graduate students and non-specialists with a basic understanding of the concepts and methods of statistical physics and demonstrates their wide range of applications to interdisciplinary topics in the field of complex system sciences, including selected aspects of theoretical modeling in biology and the social sciences.Generally speaking, the goals of statistical physics may be summarized as follows: on the one hand to study systems composed of a ...

This concise primer (based on lectures given at summer schools on complex systems and on a masters degree course in complex systems modeling) will provide graduate students and newcomers to the field with the basic knowledge of the concepts and methods of statistical physics and its potential for application to interdisciplinary topics.Indeed, in recent years, statistical physics has begun to attract the interest of a broad community of researchers in the field of complex system sc...

Einstein said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. But was he right? Can the quantum theory of fields and Einstein's general theory of relativity, the two most accurate and successful theories in all of physics, be united in a single quantum theory of gravity? Can quantum and cosmos ever be combined? On this issue, two of the world's most famous physicists--Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time) and Roger Penrose (The Emperor...

This book concludes our exploration of Quantum Mechanics in the Everyone’s Guide Series. Here, we discuss the outstanding mysteries of Quantum Mechanics and the meaning of Reality. Our topics include: EPR paradox Parallel Universes / Many Worlds Bohm’s pilot waves Bell’s Inequality Tests of Locality & Realism Spacetime Quantization & the Planck scale Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mec...

Striving to explore the subject in as simple a manner as possible, this book helps readers understand the elusive concept of entropy. Innovative aspects of the book include the construction of statistical entropy from desired properties, the derivation of the entropy of classical systems from purely classical assumptions, and a statistical thermodynamics approach to the ideal Fermi and ideal Bose gases. Derivations are worked through step-by-step and important applications are highlighted ...

The content of the book is based on the lectures on the theory of elasticity, stability, and dynamics of structures. The importance of these disciplines in the preparation of young structural engineers for work in the practice cannot be overemphasized. The university training in such fundamental discipline must seek to build a strong foundation and to illustrate the application of the used methods to practical engineering problems. The solution of a structural engineering problem usually c...

Presenting the key principles of thermodynamics from a microscopic point of view, this book provides engineers with the knowledge they need to apply thermodynamics and solve engineering challenges at the molecular level. It clearly explains the concepts of entropy and free energy, emphasizing key ideas used in equilibrium applications, whilst stochastic processes, such as stochastic reaction kinetics, are also covered. It provides a classical microscopic interpretation of thermodynamic pro...

This book aims to provide a quick pedagogical introduction to path integrals. It contains original material that never before has appeared in a book, for example the path integrals for the Wigner functions and for Classical Mechanics. This application to Classical Mechanics connects different fields like Hamiltonian mechanics and differential geometry, so the book is suitable for students and researchers from various disciplines.

This is the fifth, expanded edition of the comprehensive textbook published in 1990 on the theory and applications of path integrals. It is the first book to explicitly solve path integrals of a wide variety of nontrivial quantum-mechanical systems, in particular the hydrogen atom. The solutions have been made possible by two major advances. The first is a new euclidean path integral formula which increases the restricted range of applicability of Feynman's time-sliced formula to include s...

Space, time, matter - what really is all that? What are charges, what flavours? What is preventing time from running backwards? Quantum Gravity is describing all that - consisely, comprehensively, to the point. The Grand Unified Theory (GUT = ToE = "Theory of Everything"), finally, is caring for the rest by relating all forces of nature to each other.Parities are the peep-holes into strange worlds before the Big Bang and beyond the event horizon. Everything is calculable, even the ...

The purpose of this book is to thoroughly prepare the reader for research in string theory at an intermediate level. As such it is not a compendium of results but intended as textbook in the sense that most of the material is organized in a pedagogical and self-contained fashion.Beyond the basics, a number of more advanced topics are introduced, such as conformal field theory, superstrings and string dualities - the text does not cover applications to black hole physics and cosmolo...