Conclusion

The student who has reached this point in the book and has studied the exercises should now have some idea of the methods and range of application of thermal physics. A number of difficulties were, however, evaded in this book in the presentation of the foundations of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics partly in the interest of brevity and partly because these are best left until after the student has some familiarity with the subject. A number of books for further reading are listed after the appendixes but it may also be useful to discuss briefly some important topics which were not covered, either because of lack of space or because they were too difficult for an introductory text.