A NEW PHYSICS CURRICULUM William Flannery Berkeley Science Books

MATLAB - A Fundamental Tool for Scientific Computing and Engineering Applications - Volume 3, 2012

MATLAB offers several numerical algorithms to solve a wide variety of ODEs. These solvers are designed to handle only explicit ODEs of the form y ′ = f (t, y), linearly implicit ODEs of the form M(t, y) • y ′ = f (t, y) as well as fully implicit ones of the form f (t, y, y ′)=0. Generally

Graduate Texts in Physics publishes core learning/teaching material for graduate-and advanced-level undergraduate courses on topics of current and emerging fields within physics, both pure and applied. These textbooks serve students at the MS-or PhD-level and their instructors as comprehensive sources of principles, definitions, derivations, experiments and applications (as relevant) for their mastery and teaching, respectively. International in scope and relevance, the textbooks correspond to course syllabi sufficiently to serve as required reading. Their didactic style, comprehensiveness and coverage of fundamental material also make them suitable as introductions or references for scientists entering, or requiring timely knowledge of, a research field.

Computers have revolutionized how physical systems are analyzed; yet this revolution has not yet reached the educational system. When a process is analyzed on a computer computational calculus is used instead of Newton's analytic calculus. Computational calculus is applicable to a much wider range of problems than analytic calculus, and, unlike analytic calculus, computational calculus is simple, intuitive, and easy to learn. Euler's method of computational calculus can be taught to high school students with no previous exposure to calculus, in an hour. In the next hour they can begin analyzing complex physical systems. The theme of the paper is: 1. Mathematical physics is based on differential equations. 2. Most differential equations are difficult or impossible to solve analytically (this is the university's little secret.) 3. Computational calculus in the form of Euler's method can be used to analyze difficult and unsolvable differential equations with ease! 4. Introducing computational calculus into the physics curriculum early will revolutionize physics education. The article describes an introductory one-semester course in mathematical modeling and computational calculus; the course introduces three branches of physics, central force motion, electric circuit analysis, and 2-D rigid body dynamics. A second semester course described briefly at the end of the article introduces more topics. The article gives a brief but detailed presentation of the math, methods and results obtained in the section on central force motion. Expect easy math, spectacular results. Central force motion: falling bodies, satellites, rockets Modern math and physics began when Newton discovered the law of gravity, discovered the laws of motion, and derived the differential equation that characterizes the trajectories of falling and orbiting objects. Specifically, Newton's law of gravity is F = G·m 1 ·m 2 / r 2 , (1) the operative 2 nd law of motion is, F = m 1 ·A, (2) and by combining them Newton derived the differential equation that characterizes the trajectories of falling and orbiting objects, A = G·m 2 / r 2. (3)

A coherent set of material for upper-division university education in computational physics/science has been developed at Oregon State University, USA. It contains an introductory course in scientific computing, a course in Computational Physics, and a coordinated collection of multimedia interactive animations which enhance the book and the courses. Computational Physics programs using Python programming language are presented and displayed. It is proposed that presentation using Python is a more effective and efficient way to teach physics than the traditional one.

In this course we will learn new methods for solving classical dynamical problems, namely Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods, which employ kinetic and potential energies. This is a very fundamental course whose methods and results will be used in many of the forthcoming courses. 4. Course´s Contribution to professional training We will go further in abstraction when dealing with dynamical systems. A great deal of new mathematical training will be obtained. We will learn many problem solving techniques and physical reasoning, which are important skills required in today's research.

Computing in Science & Engineering, 2000

Progress in developing, implementing, publishing, and refining a coherent set of education materials in computational physics education will be described. These materials form the binding for a four-year undergraduate degree program leading to a Bachelor's degree in Computational Physics. Also described will be the status of the conversion of these materials into electronic formats that may be used for online education and as electronic textbooks. The online materials are to be part of a proposed national repository of university-offered, undergraduate courses and modules in computational science gathered from various pioneering programs throughout the country.

American Journal of Physics, 2014

Much of the research done by modern physicists would be impossible without the use of computation. And yet, while computation is a crucial tool of practicing physicists, physics curricula do not generally reflect its importance and utility. To more tightly connect undergraduate preparation with professional practice, we integrated computational instruction into middle-division classical mechanics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Our model for integration works within the constraints of faculty who do not specialize in computation teaching standard physics courses by placing a strong emphasis on an adaptable curriculum. Our model includes the construction of computational learning goals, the design of computational activities consistent with those goals, and the assessment of students' computational fluency. We present critiques of our model as we work to develop an effective and sustainable model for computational instruction in the undergraduate curriculum.

The multidisciplinary study of computer science in science education over the past quarter of a century has led to the articulation of important new conceptual perspectives and methodologies that are of value both to researchers in these fields as well as to teachers and students. This article describes progress and changes in developing and implementing of education materials in computational physics education; particularly at University of Delhi. This explains the time series analysis of computational interest of students for a three-year undergraduate degree program leading to a Bachelor's and two year postgraduate degree program leading to a Master's degree in Physics. Finally, some remarks are made about implementation issues and scope of computational physics study at present.

Numerical simulation is now an integrated part of science and technology. Now in its second edition, this comprehensive textbook provides an introduction to the basic methods of computational physics, as well as an overview of recent progress in several areas of scientific computing. The author presents many step-by-step examples, including program listings in Java TM , of practical numerical methods from modern physics and areas in which computational physics has made significant progress in the last decade.

Physics Education, 2018

This paper is presenting a set of laboratory classes to be taught as a part of a 1-year calculus-based physics class. It is composed out of 7 modules designed to bring together experiments and computer simulations. Each module uses both simulations and experiments to address a phenomenon under study, and lasts for 3 weeks (21 weeks total for the whole set). Wolfram Mathematica is used for computer simulations. Topics are: Motion with a drag, Pendulum with an arbitrary amplitude, Magnus effect, Centripetal force acting on a pendulum, A ball rolling from paths of various shapes, Doppler shift and Fourier transformation, Equipotential lines. These laboratory classes were taught for 2 years at