Ising Model WWW References

This is a first attempt at sorting through some of the Ising Model material available on the World Wide Web. (A simple search for "Ising Model" using HotBot returned more than 1,300 documents!)


Some Spin-Flipping Applets

The model of flipping individual spin sites would appear to be an attractive "sample problem" for Java practitioners. "Interactive" sites include the following:

Best Ising Applet
A nice presentation of flipping spins and current estimates of system energy and magnetization. This demonstration allows the user to change the temperature and watch the evolution of a small (32x32) spin system. Taken from the WWW site of Dr. A. Peter Young, Deparment of Physics, UC Santa Cruz.

"Blinking Light" Ising Simulator
This site features a very small (8x8) grid and a user-selectable Temperature scale. There is some brief accompanying discussion.

(Alleged) Potts Model Applet
This is a very simple Java animation of a 20x20 Ising lattice near its critical temperature. The Potts Model is a genneralization of the Ising Model in which the spins take a large set of values, such as {-3,-2,-1,1,2,3} in place of the simple {+1,-1} in the Ising Model. This applet shows a simple Ising model, not a (general) Potts model.


On-Line Lecture Materials

Monte Carlo Simulations In Statistical Physics
This site (from Syracuse University) presents slides from a series of Lectures by Paul Coddington. The presentation is quite broad, covering a number of topics. A subset of the slides gives an overview of the so-called "Metropolis Algorithm" for Monte Carlo Simulations, as used in the program associated with this site.

The level of math used/assumed in the slides is not overly advanced. However, the discussions are very brief - and thus not particularly informative.

Cornell University Ising Model Unit
Part of an advanced physics class developed by James Sethna, this site has some interesting animated GIFs with, however, only short discussions of the associated physics.

Monte Carlo Simulations in Statistical Physics
This is a reasonably self-contained discussion of Monte Carlo methods which is, however, a bit heavy on equations.

Monte Carlo Methods and Simulation
Another set of fairly terse lecture notes from the Condensed Matter Theory Group at Imperial College, London, England.