Lecture 1 | Modern Physics: Statistical Mechanics

[1isaacmusic]

I figured out by watching most of these lectures, that the guy who asks all the questions is the same guy who brings Leonard all the cookies. His name is Michael, I even heard the proff say that he could ask as many questions as he wanted to, as long as he kept the cookies coming :)

[brooksguillory]

Shut the fuck up, you annoying goody-two-shoes bastard who keeps speaking up! No one in there is impressed by the random shit you ask. Especially when talking about the coin being different on both sides, we don't need you to pipe up and mention, "air-resistance!" as if the class will take a whole new direction with this notion of air-resistance. Asking genuine questions is accepted/welcomed. Trying to add to the proffessor's lecture over and over is bawls annoying.

[BarriosGroupie]

Susskind is one of those rare physicists that's both a brilliant researcher and teacher

[Shaung1231]

Reminds me of Paul G. Hewitt

[JahbeOneKanollbee]

According to Leonard, entropy is a form of ignorance.... how does that comply with thermodynamical entropy?

[yallowrosa]

lengthy, hence boring, and so unclear ...

[bbsonjohn]

The audience has a large entropy according to 1:19:00

[gosho006]

simply as probabilty... greetings from Peru

[MauricioHT]

What a lecture! Totally changed my understanding os statistical mechanics. I'm looking forward for the next one!

Thank you very much, Leonard Susskind! That was amazing!

[lovelplants]

yeah i agree that physics is just the application of math.. lol..

the lecture is so splendid! lol

[111nataraja]

"State of complete ignorance is a state where all things are equally probable .... well canned/conserved/expressed life quality/quantity :)

[agapitoflores001]

This is a very intellectual discussion. I have learned a lot of new knowledge.

[PauliEffect]

that fuckin guy. I'm only 6 minutes in, and I already hate him.

[sirfatah]

Is there anyone can solve this problem?

Calculate the torsional spring stiffness constant for a steel shaft 0.5" in diameter and 2.5 ft long. Express your result in lbf/rad, and in ft/deg.

Thx.

[heckler73]

@sirfatah what type of steel?

[giurrero]

I don't understand... a student knows what is an hergodic system and the professor need to explaini what is a pdf?

I don't know if it is the normal level of physics lecture at Stanford, but it seems low

[fisherweb]

is there anyone who knows where to get the LECTURE NOTES of these classes

[rdale14]

Sometimes he looks like john malkovich

[PLecN]

@rdale14 Yes - I've kept thinking hmm - he's like ... and never been able to nail it. Hat's off!

[engeljakob]

sweetchild?

[mrdotbeezle]

beautiful... thanks

[TheTester009]

Susskind is really great!

There are so many sucking bad university teachers who don't deserve their salary, in particularly in the US, where so many Indian, Chinese or others give lectures with terrible accents and are not understandable.

As a contrast, Susskind is really a blessing for all physics students!

[TheTester009]

Susskind is really great!

There are so many sucking bad university teachers who don't deserve their salary.

As a contrast Susskind is really a blessing for all physics students!

[AleifrLeifrson]

Does anyone know if the lecture notes, exercises and so forth are freely available on the web, like MIT do?

[AleifrLeifrson]

I'm supposed to be studying introductory statistics right now, but I'm just so tempted to just watch this xP....just for fun

[ruyfoton]

Thank you

[ruyfoton]

Hi, I'm not a native English speaker and I'd like to know what de Z stands for. I heard something like "Zoulch" but I don't know what that means. Could somebody explain it in other words?

Thanks

[Monkeyradar]

@ruyfoton Zilch

[alrhazes]

my brain hurts! (><)

[gamma809]

I believe Susskind is a blessing to all mostly self-taught university level physics students everywhere. His lectures on general relativity and quantum mechanics have greatly helped me when I came across math so foreign it is like the bird flu virus in a human body, and well we all know how deadly that can be. He himself is an excellent illustration that one can come from humble beginnings and become one of the greatest physicists of the modern era.

[gamma809]

I believe Susskind is a blessing to all mostly self-taught university level physics students everywhere. His lectures on general relativity and quantum mechanics have greatly helped me when I came across math so foreign it is like the bird flu virus in a human body, and well we all know how deadly that can be. He himself is an excellent illustration that one can come from very humble beginnings and become one of the greatest physicists of the modern era.

[akamaras]

This lecturer is absolutely great! I wish all the teachers could explain things with such clarity!

[xenoepist]

@akamaras Well, not all schools can afford such a great physicist to teach! Most of the engineering and physics teachers in my school are foreign... Really knowledgeable, but hard to understand :/

[Raizdecimal]

The man who beat Stephen Hawking. whatapleasure

[TuNuCedeMalis]

@9:40.. Being that the die now has two red sides, keeping the other colors at 1/6 chance does not make sense. After all, it has six sides but could fall on two different sides and still get red, lowering the chance for the other colors. Stating 1/6 dose not make sense being that 2 of the six sides are red and the other colors count up to 4. Each one added to the total 6 individually before. Disclaimer: I understand why it is believed to be 1/6 but disagree.

[PLecN]

@TuNuCedeMalis You're right. All he was saying that if *all you knew was* that there were five colours, you wouldn't be able to use the a priori notion of prob = 1/6 for a die. To get the right prob, you would have to actually do some more analysis - exactly what you've done.

[phrozenfire07]

If an apple would have fallen to someone other than Newton, He would have waited for Other apple to fall than to think for why it fell down n not flew away !!

Fact !!

[phrozenfire07]

If an apple would have fallen to someone other than Newton, He would have waited for Other apple to fall than to think for why it fell down n not flew away !!

Fact !!

[maniachris]

my lecturer for statistical mechanics is a very intelligent man, but his english sucks to be honest. I'm so glad I can watch some decent lectures on this subject :)

[chil0man]

this guy knows

[redteamdarkspear]

"Air resistance!"

No shit, Einstein, air resistance applies to coins too. The point was already made that most coins are naturally imbalanced. Now go back to taking notes.

[stwahyudi]

Terimakasih dan haturnuhun, this mean, Thank you verymuch

[Professorcomanf]

Just awesome. Very, very good. Cheers from Brazil.

[MrSub4]

When Leonard speaks, you shut it and listen.

[EltBerserker]

HOLY BEARS HOLY BEARS HOLY BEARS

[alexdrudigmail]

I download the lessons and fastforward on annoying questions. I suggest you do the same and stop bitching about them, if you may. The discussion space is polluted with tons of these pointless complaints: the questions aren't going to disappear from the videos. Thank you!

[majamr7]

Never study in the US. Americans are oppressive people. They kicked me from three physics departments in their country because I am a Muslim student.

حسبي الله و نعم الوكيل

[elvisguru]

zillion replicas of the room.. We are gonna do it Mathematically,not Physically !!!!

[blizzardd50]

We had a guy on our course that kept asking questions just to show off his knowledge. We kept coughing when he spoke until he stopped coming to lectures. Just sayin.....

[zenog12]

Lecture 1 | Modern Physics: Statistical Mechanics

[fateola]

Guy at 39 minutes needs a punch in the face.

[LuvStayn]

Argh.

Stop freaking interrupting and let the guy lecture!

[savvvvvvvvvvy]

Who on earth is the idiot who keeps butting in? Why would you bring in information theory and entropy when the lecturer's trying to give a simplistic explanation using die? Of course he's going to be talking about those things at some point; of course you can apply information theory- why ask a question if you already know the answer? I really detest people like that who think they have the answer to everything, but essentially know nothing, just spouting rubbish they've skimmed over.

[BarriosGroupie]

@savvvvvvvvvvy he could be someone who loves the sound of their own voice or... someone who thngs the rest of the class may benefit from new things in the question

[savvvvvvvvvvy]

@BarriosGroupie Don't misunderstand, I'm not one of the people who tuts whenever someone asks a question in a lecture. If the question is relevant i.e. if the person doesn't understand or has a question regarding an obscure point of the current topic, fair play to them. Alternatively, if someone is asking questions regarding something that hasn't been covered yet [and information theory was obviously going to be discussed at some point in statistical mechanics], I find it hugely irritating.

[sentiments]

@savvvvvvvvvvy Yes I agree with you. Irritating people.

[mathfeel]

@savvvvvvvvvvy, same idiots, usually ex-engineer, who thinks that the "information theoretic" description of nature is somehow superior, when it cannot offer a single prediction that the traditional approach does not already offer.

[whoanonstop]

@savvvvvvvvvvy Out of all the videos I've watched of Susskind, I have yet to hear one question from the audience that was truly relevant. Annoying. Let him talk.

[PLecN]

@whoanonstop Don't be too harsh! Excellent question @ 38:56. Student asks about the diff between the first example - probability associated with *random* flipping of a coin, and that for the *deterministic* rule for dice being discussed at the time.

It led Prof. Susskind to explain that in classical physics, all systems are deterministic, and only apparently statistical due to lack of information about a given system. Thought that was a crucial point to hear!

[whoanonstop]

@PLecN True. My mistake. However, there have been so many useless questions altogether.

[glensonville]

I love the way he introduces these courses with general examples before getting into the actual theory of the course.

[albi7]

The difference between probability and statistics is that in probability we know the distributions, and in statistics we estimate them.

[Wolfe3001]

You DONT need ergodicity for liouville's theorem..

[TristanTheSaint]

@Wolfe3001 and actually its the countrary... You "need" Liouville's theorem to have ergodicity, i.e some kind of measure preserving property.

Dissipative systems are much much harder to study then conservative ones.

[Mattprole]

Jesus, Susskind teaches lots of courses.

[Tripphysicist]

does anyone know where to find the lecture notes that accompany these lectures?

[dzusa200]

I wish if I am a Standford student.

[kerpalh]

@dzusa200 with that grammar, I doubt you'll survive.

[setimeti]

@kerpalh Hahahaha, nice answer...

[whscsu]

This is the best teaching style I have ever seen.

[nellsdo]

hes nice.

[anikamueller21]

ich grad grad gelesen wie man weiber nabggert auf GeileZone . com hehe

[underground24020]

Do not be fooled by Professor Susskind's intellect, he is a true cocksman.

[sidiqmk]

Ahah! Proof that Prof Susskind believes in God! He asked everyone to pray for ink before he wrote on the board..

[twiddle7125]

He didn't say pray to god...

[sidiqmk]

But atheists don't pray..

[twiddle7125]

praying doesn't necessarily mean to a deity

[sidiqmk]

But a deity is the only thing worth praying to..

[MyOverflow]

Yes, truly Susskind MUST believe in God. I mean, sarcasm couldn't explain it, right?

[pikiwiki]

@MyOverflow huh?

[LordTyrannus]

Nothing is worth praying to or for.

[t0kt0k]

Thank you so much for making these available. This is what the internet should be all about.

[mysticx0]

where does one begin if one would want to learn more about quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory etc.? im sure they all feed off of each other but what are the fundamentals? where do i begin?

[eduardomartinez47]

susskind has a number of lectures in utube about those subjects; check also iit (indian institute of technology)

[mysticx0]

thank you!

[live4Cha]

I would say, from the point it entered the science, which is the try to explain Black-body Radiation.

I think this will sooner or later ends up to the point where we found Atomistic explanation of chemistry is the first quantization law.

take care

David

[godsownphilosopher]

@mysticx0 Mathematics: Get a good grip on calculus, linear algebra, topology, differential geometry and abstract algebra. Pay special attention to solving differential equations, complex numbers, lie algebras/groups, and manifolds. For physics, make sure you have a solid understanding of classical mechanics (specifically, Lagrangians/Hamiltonians, and Noether's theorem), with electrodynamics and optics. The last three are really fundamental.

[lvildos]

anyone out there who can answer this: does Liouville's theorem consider the phase space transformation into a fractal volumetric shape 55:06 to differ in entropy precisely because of this change in phase space distribution as given in this video example ?

[lowridrtruck]

if the coin has a 50/50 probability, is this including the probability it will land on its side? a 6sided dice, can only land on 1 of the 6 sides due to is dimensions. However with only two sides, and due to the fact its not completly flat, theres the probability a coin can land on its side.

Correct?

Given that statements correct, the probability of heads/tails would be ~49.998%.

[harmonicgrunt]

ever flip a coin and it lands (rolls) on its Edge?.

[lowridrtruck]

You can say its improbable, but would be wrong to say its impossible.

[lomje70]

We're considering idealised coins. Idealised coins don't land on their side, and in addition they aren't biased. Real coins aren't even unbiased: one side comes out more often than the other, even if only marginally so.

[jwliang09]

we assume the coin is COMPLETELY flat.. 2d surface.

[OutlawzAKA]

who said the great Plato was dead? is alive and well........ great lecture.

[renatoaz]

Wow, Susskind lectures for everyone? This is an invaluable contribution for mankind's knowledge. This is huge, Stanford. Thanks!

[jonstewartfanboy]

I was so happy to see that, quite a surprise to have this on YT. Go Stanford!

[mysticx0]

i couldnt agree more, i have no way to travel to or even pay for such things but its fantastic that stanford reaches out to those even like me and provides a wealth of information. i couldnt be more pleasantly surprised! thank you!