Computational Physics Lab | 2023-Winter

Course Name
Computational Physics Lab
Course Number
ph366
Year/Term
Winter-2023
Course Credits
1
Class meeting times
3 hours of lecture per week
Prerequisites
PH 213, This course is expected to be taken alongside the Paradigms.
Course description
A project-driven laboratory experience in computational physics. Includes the use of basic mathematical and numerical techniques in computer calculations leading to solutions for typical physical problems. Topics to be covered will coordinate with the Paradigms in Physics course sequence.
Topic/Day
Activities
Resources
Homework Due
Day 1
Introduction
Computational lab introduction
Guidelines for presentations
Day 2 and 3
Taylor series of a function
Taylor Series
Davide's notebook
Week 3
Runge-Kutta methods
Runge-Kutta methods
Davide's notebook
Week 4 and 5
Electrostatic potential of four charges + Midterm
Electrostatic Potential of Four Point Charges

Davide's notebook

Davide's midterm solution with extra fun

Week 6
Potential and Electric Field of continuous charge distributions
Electrostatic potential and Electric Field of a square of charge
Davide's notebook
Week 7
Modeling Data
Data Modeling and chi square minimization
Davide's notebook
Week 9
Mean Position
Mean position
Davide's notebook
Week 10
Sinusoidal Basis Set
Sinusoidal basis set