Errata

p. 79, Example E8.1: the order of the elements Li and Be is incorrect in this example: the line

elements = 'H He Be Li B C N O F Ne'

should, of course, be:

elements = 'H He Li Be B C N O F Ne'

p. 135, Table 14.1,first row: the symbol for "greater than or equal to", generated by \ge and \geq should be \(\ge\), of course.

p. 179, code listing: The line

f_sq[t >= T] = f[t < T]

should read

f_sq[t >= T] = f_sq[t < T]

p. 185: the formula given for the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecular speeds is for the probability density of the velocity, \(\boldsymbol{v}\) where the vector velocity, \(\boldsymbol{v} = (v_x, v_y, v_z)\). That is,

where the molecular speed, \(v = \sqrt{v_x^2 + v_y^2 + v_z^2}\) and \(f(\boldsymbol{v})\) is normalized such that \(\int f(\boldsymbol{v})\;\mathrm{d}v_x\,\mathrm{d}v_y\,\mathrm{d}v_z = 1\). This is more usefully expressed as a probability density over the speed: