PHYSICS 215A · PHYS 215AStatistical Physics
Physics · 4 units · Graduate courses (200-299)
Microstates and macrostates, statistical ensembles, entropy and other thermodynamic functions, equilibrium, variational principles, functional integration methods. Applications: ideal gas, oscillators, rotors, elasticity, paramagnetism. Indistinguishable particles, Fermi/Dirac and Bose/Einstein distributions. Applications: electron gas, neutron stars, white dwarfs, Bose/Einstein condensation. Kinetics.
Letter grading.
When it runs
- Spring 2026
- Spring 2027
Scheduled, not typical — from UCLA’s Schedule of Classes, which publishes Fall 2025 through Spring 2027 and nothing before it.
Requisites
UCLA lists no requisites for this course.
Requires
Everything that has to come before this course, not just the courses named in the requisite above.
Nothing — this is an entry point.
Unlocks
What this course is a requisite for, and what those courses lead to in turn.
PHYSICS 215A
- PHYSICS M215DNonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics and Molecular Biophysics
- PHYSICS 241ASolid-State Physics
- PHYSICS 241BSolid State Physics
- PHYSICS 241CSolid State Physics
- PHYSICS 242AAdvanced Solid-State Theory
- PHYSICS 242BAdvanced Solid-State Theory
- PHYSICS 242CTopology of Condensed Matter
- CH ENGR 201Methods of Molecular Simulation
- PHYSICS 250Introduction to Acceleration of Charged Particles
- CHEM M223CNonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics and Molecular Biophysics
5 courses list this as a requisite. The whole downstream is here — 15 courses over 3 levels. Every course here opens its own tree.