Computational Physics
Lecturer: Dr Paul
Abbott
Phone +61 (0) 8 9380 2734
Fax +61 (0) 8 9380 1014
The purpose of computing is insight, not
numbers — Richard
Hamming
What is Computational Physics?
The broad categories of computational physics are simulation, visualisation and modelling. At a finer scale, computational physics embraces a wide range of areas including numerical methods, algorithms and data analysis. Simulation and modelling are usually taught by stressing numerical techniques — this course focuses on using symbolic or computer algebra — in particular, using Mathematica.
The objectives of this course are:
- to use computers as an aid to understanding real physical systems;
- to learn efficient methods for the analysis of these systems.
You should also regularly visit the newsgroup uwa.comp.physics as comments, updates, answers, and suggestions will be posted there.
Computational Experiments
This course is a "hands-on" laboratory style course consisting of 10 x 2 hour lab sessions worth a total of 60%. Assessment is continuous and the final (take-home) exam makes up the remaining 40%. The zeroth Notebook gives an overview of the course:
- Introduction
- Course Overview
- References
- Book-keeping
The assignments are:
- Mathematica
Basics
- Getting Help
- Basic Calculations
- Basics
of Mathematica Programming
- Introduction
- Factorial!
- Functional Programming
- Pattern-matching and Replacement Rules
- Association
- Simple Programming
- Blocks, Modules, and Variable Scoping
- Summary
- Numerics
- Finite and Infinte Precision
- Interpolation
- Numerical Differentiation
- Fourier
Methods
- Fourier Series
- DFT and FFT
- Sound
- Differential
Equations
- Planet Moving in the Field of Two Suns
- Heat Equation
- Normal Modes of Coupled Oscillators
- Dynamical
Systems and Chaos
- Planar Pendulum
- Iterative Operations
- Schroedinger
Equation
- Hydrogen
- Stark effect for hydrogen
- Helium perturbation calculation
Exams
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updated�May�6,�20011 |
