Students should have taken an appropriate selection of year 1 and year 2 physics units, including PH20018 in order to take this unit.
Aims & Learning Objectives:
The aims of this unit are to introduce students to the practical use of computer modelling as a complement to theoretical and experimental solution of physical problems, to introduce some of the contemporary packages available to the modeller, and to explore topics in physics which lend themselves to computational modelling.
After taking this unit the student should be able to:
* Identify the strengths and weaknesses of a computational approach to modelling;
* Use existing packages to demonstrate topics in undergraduate physics;
* Construct Maple worksheets to analyse physical problems;
* Perform simple simulations using 2d cellular automata;
* Explain the methodology and output of the simulations performed.
Content:
Introduction to simulation as a means of gaining physical insight; contemporary applications of simulation; practical uses of simulation packages.
Computer algebra packages as a scientific computer environment; problems solved effectively in this environment and those not. Practical introduction to Maple.
Exercises and projects based upon construction of Maple worksheets, analysing physical problems. Examples may include time-dependent quantum mechanical scattering, coupled oscillators, resonant phenomena, simple non-linear (including chaotic) systems, time-series analysis.
Introduction to cellular automata, self-organisation and fractals. Applications to physical systems. Exercises and projects including interfacing to computer graphics.
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