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There is a distinction. Usually statistical mechanics means the ensemble theory and partition functions that connects microscopic systems to macroscopic ones fr
by northlondoner 1y ago
There is a distinction. Usually statistical mechanics means the ensemble theory and partition functions that connects microscopic systems to macroscopic ones from material point of views. However, statistical physics is a bit more generic, for example complex networks may not use ensemble theory or partition functions and could use only statistics on the network, such as average neighbourhood or similar.
- kgwgk 1y agoPeople have also used “statistical physics” to refer to the former concept since forever. For example Landau. “Statistical mechanics” is also used in a broad sense, just like “quantum mechanics” is often used for anything “quantum”.
- nakamoto_damacy 1y agoWhat I'm getting from this discussion is that we use Statistical Physics to refer to anything covered by Statistical Physics AND Statistical Mechanics, while we use Statistical Mechanics in a narrower context, but it is also possible that some use SM loosely.
- kgwgk 1y ago> it is also possible that some use SM loosely I think it’s frequent. For example: https://teach-me-codes.github.io/computational-physics/the_percolation_model/ https://teach-me-codes.github.io/computational-physics/the_p...