I have posted before that I think it is very important in teaching to present students with comparisons of theory with actual experimental data. It is disturbing that many teachers and textbook writers make little effort to do this. On a positive note, here is a particularly nice comparison.
In PHYS4030 Condensed Matter Physics this week I am teaching Paramagnetism and diamagnetism, closely following chapter 31 of Ashcroft and Mermin.
Consider non-interacting paramagnetic ions with total angular momentum J in a magnetic field B at thermal equilibrium at temperature T. Basic statistical mechanics can be used to derive an expression for the magnetisation, which is a universal function of B/T, known as the Brilloiun function. A&M do not compare this to experiment. However, I recalled that when I was an undergraduate we used a very nice book, Heat and Thermodynamics, [5th edition] by Mark Zemansky. It contains the comparison below, taken from a 1952 paper by Henry.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is your experience of using AI for research in condensed matter theory?
I have been dabbling a little with using AI (at a very basic level) to help me with some research problems. For example, in a recent prepr...
-
This week Nobel Prizes will be announced. I have not done predictions since 2020 . This is a fun exercise. It is also good to reflect on w...
-
The Ising model is a paradigm in both statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics. Today for most theorists it is so familiar that so...
-
Some of my colleagues and I have started an interesting discussion about how to teach quantum theory to undergraduates. We have courses in t...

No comments:
Post a Comment