▲ | northlondoner 4 days 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 4 days ago | parent [-] | ||||||||||||||||
People 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”. | |||||||||||||||||
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