An Introduction to Thermal Physics

Feels weird to rate a textbook in terms of other books, but I'm giving it 5 stars because I don't see how this could be considerably better.

Maybe I'm biased because I ended up really liking the topic of statistical physics in general, but I feel that this textbook really contributed to that. Everything is explained well and rigorously, it clearly states when/what assumptions are made, but still does back of the envelope calculations (e.g., finding an almost-formula for something using dimensional analysis) in a way that really resonates to how I would think about it. Some other textbooks are more like reference catalogs, but this one is clearly aimed at helping you learn and understand the topic.

A few other things I appreciate in the book are the quick calculations and gut-checks done throughout the book (e.g., exercise 1.10: estimate the number of air molecules in an average-sized room), and the fact that Schroeder speaks in first person, in a way that feels very personal.

I think this is a good read for science-inclined people, even if you don't do physics, especially because it's something that is not commonly talked about in internet science education the way quantum and relativity is (which I now feel is a crime lol). Having done chemistry in high-school, I felt that this book helped me to "open my eyes", which I think is best characterized by the fact that I now know what temperature actually is.