The advent of inexpensive, powerful computers has opened new doors for investigation in physics. Numerical methods are now applied in all branches of physics and enable physicists to investigate new phenomena like chaos and to produce more complete models of nature. This course introduces students to the use of finite difference techniques to solve differential equations and Monte Carlo methods to simulate complex systems. In particular, it is designed to follow the introductory, general physics sequence and builds on their understanding of Newton's Laws and mechanics. It develops problem solving skills including the application of computational methods and research skills. Codes are written with Mathematica.
The development of the course is complete.
Materials exist that satisfy all of the goals listed above and a
series of computational laboratories have been developed
for visualizing and solving problems.
This component of the course is the product of a grant from
the National Science Foundation Instrumentation and
Laboratory Improvement program.
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