Rating: 
Summary: an excellent demonstration of pigs in flight
Review: If you are fortunate enough not to be a physicist, you will toss this book away in frustration at the lack of proper derivations and explanations. If, however, you are fortunate enough to _be_ a physicist (or even an aspiring one), you will toss this book away in frustration at the flagrant absurdity to the textbook's approach. To put it another way, if you are the type of person who knows material without ever being taught it, _even then_ this book is not for you... for why would such a person need a textbook?Should you be in the unfortunate situation that your school requires you to use this text, be sure to frequent the index such that you may find necessary background information in the chapters ahead of what you are presently reading. Under no circumstance should you attempt the homework problems without doing so. This author provides no clear examples, no solutions, and I have found many problems which, to one who reads the book 'linearly,' cannot be solved without information from future problems and sections in the text.
Rating: 
Summary: Schroeder's better explaining Quantum Field Theory!
Review: Leafing through the first few pages, I had this feeling that I wouldn't like Scroeder's book at all (much like other textbooks we're prescribed at university). Put simply, this text is a to-be-avoided waste of money and time. Though I learned important themodynamical concepts from the book, I found it hard to bear Schroeder's attempt to render the book an informal, enjoyable read. Far from it, it gave me headaches all througout the semester, and was it not for some other text I managed to save money to purchase (Thermodynamics, Kinetic theory, and Statistical Thermodynamics, by Sears & Salinger), I don't think i would have survived the exam study period. The book by Sears & Salinger is comparatively much expensive but it's definitely worth the investment, since it manages to give clear, straightforward explanations of all principles, and also gives excellent exposes on the Fermi and Bose-Einstein statistics, which are more relevant to modern understandings of quantum thermal physics. Also, the questions set at the end of each chapter do not cover in full detail the material of each chapter, and the clear lack of examples is but a total disregard of pedagogical needs of students, who need examples to get a better understanding of concepts introduced to them. The omition of answers, as mentioned by other reviewers, is definitely a disadvantage
Rating: 
Summary: Great explanations; Enjoyable to read
Review: Schroeder sets the mark for readability with this undergraduate physics text. This was my favorite among all my undergraduate texts; by far the easiest to understand and most enjoyable to read. His explanations are clever and witty. I enjoyed his lucid introduction to combinatorics in statistical mechanics. Schroeder gets an A+ in defining abstract ideas such as enthalpy, partition functions, and intensive vs. extensive quantities. On the flip side, the organization is loose, and there aren't enough worked out examples in the latter chapters. I highly recommend this book to professors who want students to actually read and learn from the text.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Explanations, but...
Review: The book explains the material fairly well. You won't have much trobule in understanding the material presented. However, the book contains absolutely no examples (not even the routine calculuations). I don't consider that to be a major disadvantage of the book, but the following I certainly do: The problems in the book are not supplemented by answers. Not even the
'numerical' problmes! Not giving answers to problems seems to me be a trend in modern physics texts, and it is very frusrating to a new-comer/undergrad.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Book
Review: This book is not very clearly written, contrary to what other reviewers think. There are all sorts of errors throughout the book, and crucial details are left out. I don't buy the author's assertions on his Web site that students would just be given a crutch with answers in the back. This is bogus -- answers in the back allow students to verify their work. Taking a thermodynamics class with this book has been very frustrating because the author just does not give students the right information they need to think about the physics and connect this with the math.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Book
Review: This book is not very clearly written, contrary to what other reviewers think. There are all sorts of errors throughout the book, and crucial details are left out. I don't buy the author's assertions on his Web site that students would just be given a crutch with answers in the back. This is bogus -- answers in the back allow students to verify their work. Taking a thermodynamics class with this book has been very frustrating because the author just does not give students the right information they need to think about the physics and connect this with the math.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good book
Review: This is a very good on "thermal Physics".It is extremely clear and have examples from almost every conceivable areas of knowledge.Every topic is clearly explained but the physics behind the chemical potentials are specially cleverly explained If the author prepares an solution manual for instructors i am sure it will became a classical
Rating:
Summary: Awful, Awful, AWFUL
Review: This is one of the worst physics textbooks I've encountered, ever. And this is a guy who's complained just about every science/math text, from Griffiths, to Kittel, to Wangsness. I could always do some self study or another with their books. Those criticisms pale in comparison to this one. Not only are there NO examples and NO answers in this book, the author does not have a coherent structure in organizing the book. He starts out with thermo principles, throws in a little of the quantum statistics, goes off to the heat engines section, then bounces back and forth between chemical equilibrium, classical and quantum statistics. Does not show a clear outline or approach on how to teach the students. The author also tends to oversimplify the concepts without a theoretical backbone, and then turns around to provide problems that the student may not have been adequately prepared for. I'm not the only one in my class griping about this book, however. The top 5% in the class had such a tough time with it, and it wasn't because they were DUMB. If this is being used for introductory courses to stat mechanics, then the Gods of Physics help us all. I was so frustrated with this book, I threw it out my door and into the patio.
Rating:
Summary: Awful, Awful, AWFUL
Review: This is one of the worst physics textbooks I've encountered, ever. And this is a guy who's complained just about every science/math text, from Griffiths, to Kittel, to Wangsness. I could always do some self study or another with their books. Those criticisms pale in comparison to this one. Not only are there NO examples and NO answers in this book, the author does not have a coherent structure in organizing the book. He starts out with thermo principles, throws in a little of the quantum statistics, goes off to the heat engines section, then bounces back and forth between chemical equilibrium, classical and quantum statistics. Does not show a clear outline or approach on how to teach the students. The author also tends to oversimplify the concepts without a theoretical backbone, and then turns around to provide problems that the student may not have been adequately prepared for. I'm not the only one in my class griping about this book, however. The top 5% in the class had such a tough time with it, and it wasn't because they were DUMB. If this is being used for introductory courses to stat mechanics, then the Gods of Physics help us all. I was so frustrated with this book, I threw it out my door and into the patio.
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