Statistical Physics 2
The statistical physics II course is given by Professor Jan Ryckebusch. The course is very well structured and both theory as exercise lessons are given by Professor Ryckebusch who is known as on of the best Professors in the faculty of physics due to his dynamic style of teaching. The lessons for this course are given at the "Proeftuinstraat" campus Proeftuinstraat.
The course is centered around a few important concepts: phase-transitions, renormalisation group theory, critical phenomena (power law behavior) en self-organized criticality. The course starts with a very basic description of the Ising model and continuing with more advanced theories which are reflected onto the ising model. Afterwards a more detailed look into phase transitions is done and the course ends with two special topics: self-organized criticality and econophysics (application of statistical physics to ecomonics).
The course also contains two "paper clubs", which means that a paper is given to the students, this must be thoroughly read and during the paper club ( 1 lesson ) this paper is then discussed in group. Make sure you completely go through the paper before going to "paper club", or you will just spend two hours listening to a group of people talking about a subject you know nothing about.
The examination is made up of two parts: 1 part theory which is pure oral with a 20 min open book preperation (slides, papers and whatever books you want are provided by the professor) which accounts for 2/3 of the final score. The exam is quite straightforward and not to difficult. Everything in the course is connected to each other, so make sure you also know the connections between the different theories. The second part of the examination is a open book exercises exam based on the exercises made throughout the year. This second part accounts for 1/3 of the final score and tends to be extremely difficult, as Professor Ryckebusch wants to "challenge" you. Don't worry, the Professor is well aware of the difficulty level and grades very mildly (eg. if you don't get the initial part of the question don't give up, explaining how you would solve the following parts can also award you points).
