P410 Computing Applications in Physics
P609 Computational Physics
Department of Physics, Indiana University
Fall, 2005

go to lecture notes    go to homework assignments

Taught by: Steven Gottlieb
Meets: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in Student Building 230

Note that this is a cluster of Sun workstations in the building with the clock tower. Please make an account for yourself before coming to class.

Setting up an Account

You should set up an account on the Nations Unix cluster if you don't already have one. You might also like to have an account on the Ships cluster. To set up such an account, follow the directions at this link: http://uits.iu.edu/. First go to the "Accounts and Passwords" link. Then go the "Accounts" link in the "Common tasks and troubleshooting" section.

or go directly to this link: https://iuaccts.ucs.indiana.edu/

Computer Help

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Syllabus

These courses (P410/P609) in computer applications may be taken by undergraduates or graduate students. Click to examine the syllabus for the course.

About the Textbook

The textbook An Introduction to Computer Simulation Methods--- Applications to Physical Systems by Harvey Gould and Jan Tobochnik is now in its second edition. There is a web page for the text that you might want to visit.

Student Academic Support Center

Student Photographs

Material Relating to Lectures Will Appear Here

Notes for Lecture 1 - Introduction, UNIX Basics, Hierarchical File System, Special Characters (August 30).

Supplementary Notes for Lecture 1 - On-line Help and Unix Tutorials.

Notes for Lecture 2 - Special Characters, Redirection, axis (September 1).

Notes for Lecture 3 - AWK, Introduction to Euler Method (September 6).

Notes for Lecture 4 - Error analysis of Euler Algorithm, Shell Scripts, Intro. to Chap 3 (September 8).

Notes for Lecture 5 - Newton's Laws of Motion, Energy Nonconservation (September 13).

Notes for Lecture 6 - Euler-Richardson Algorithm; Multiple Graphs; Body Falling in Position Dependent Potential (September 15).

Notes for Lecture 7 - Body Falling in Position Dependent Potential (continued), Graphing velocity ratio (September 22).

Notes for Lecture 8 - Root finding, Running adapt.c to find height (September 27).

Notes for Lecture 9 - Oscillatory Motion, Script writing, Conservation of Energy in the Euler Algorithm (September 29).

  Some remarks about C programming (These are not lecture notes, but you might find them useful.)

Notes for Lecture 10 - Error Analysis, Higher Order Algorithms (October 6).

Notes for Lectures 11-14 - Final Project, Introduction to Mathematica, Random Walks (October 11-21).

Notes for Lecture 12 - More Random Walks, Hist, Biased Estimators (October 18).

Notes for Lecture 17 - Project, AHO, Optimal Step Size, Advanced Root Finding (November 1).

Notes for Lecture 18 - Finding Bifurcation Points, Instability and Chaos, Lyapunov Exponent (November 3).

Notes for Lecture 19 - Numerical Integration in One Dimension (November 4).

Notes for Lecture 20 - Simpson's Rule Rederived, Hit or Miss Method, (November 8).

Notes for Lecture 21 - Second Semester Outline, Inverse Transform Method, Box-Muller Method (November 11).

Notes from 2004 Lectures

Notes for Lecture 1 - Introduction, UNIX Basics (August 31).

Supplementary Notes for Lecture 1 - On-line Help and Unix Tutorials.

Notes for Lecture 2 - Hierarchical File System, Special Characters (September 2).

Notes for Lecture 3 - Redirection, axis, AWK, Introduction to Euler Method (September 7).

Notes for Lecture 4 - Error analysis of Euler Algorithm, Shell Scripts (September 9).

Notes for Lecture 5 - Newton's Laws of Motion, Energy Nonconservation (September 14).

Notes for Lecture 6 - Euler-Richardson Algorithm; Multiple Graphs; Body Falling in Position Dependent Potential (September 16).

Lectures 7-8 - Koppix Linux, hardware and software installation (September 21, 23).

Notes for Lecture 9 - Body Falling in Position Dependent Potential (continued), Root finding (September 28).

Notes for Lecture 10 - Graphing Velocity Ratio, Root finding (continued) (September 30).

Notes for Lecture 11 - Running adapt, Oscillatory Motion, Conservation of Energy in the Euler Algorithms (October 5).

  Some remarks about C programming (These are not lecture notes, but you might find them useful.)

Notes for Lecture 12 - Higher Order Algorithms (October 7).

Notes for Lectures 13-16 - Final Project, Introduction to Mathematica (October 12-21).

Notes for Lecture 14 - Random Walks, Biased Estimators (October 14).

Notes for Lecture 15 - Biased Estimators and Jackknife Method I (October 19).

Notes for Lecture 16 - Hist, Application of the Jackknife Method (October 21).

Notes for Lecture 17 - Jackknife Method Via mathematica (October 26).

    A few comments about efficiency

Notes for Lecture 18 - Energy Conservation; Logistic Map and Chaos (October 28).

Notes for Lecture 19 - Logistic Map and Chaos (continued) (November 2).

Notes for Lecture 20 - Continuation of Logistic Map and Chaos (November 4).

Notes for Lecture 22 - Project, Numerical Integration in One Dimension (November 11).

Notes for Lecture 23 - Hit or Miss Method, Inverse Transform Method (November 16).

Notes for Lecture 24 - Exponential Distribution, Box-Muller Method (November 18).

Notes for Lecture 25 - Metropolis Method, Autocorrelations (November 23).

Notes for Lecture 26 - Pseudorandom Number Generators, Serial Correlation Tests (November 30).

Notes for Lecture 27 - Fitting Data, Chi-squared distribution (December 2).

Notes for Lecture 28 - More on Chi-squared distribution (December 7).

Notes for Lecture 29 - Non-Linear Fitting (December 9).

Homework Assignments Will Appear Below

The first exercise is due on Thursday, September 8. It was explained in class and can be found at either link. You need to be able to view either PostScript or PDF.
PostScript
PDF

Homework Assignment 1 (Due Thursday, September 22, 2005) .

Homework Assignment 2 (Due Tuesday, October 11, 2005) .

Homework Assignment 3 (Due Tuesday, October 25, 2005) .

Homework Assignment 4 (Due Tuesday, November 8, 2005) .

Homework Assignment 5 (Due Thursday, November 17, 2005) .

Homework Assignment 6 (Due Thursday, December 8, 2005) .

Homework Assignments From 2004
The first exercise is due on Tuesday, September 14. It was explained in class and can be found at either link. You need to be able to view either PostScript or PDF.
PostScript
PDF

Homework Assignment 1 (Due Tuesday, September 28, 2004) .

Homework Assignment 2 (Due Thursday, October 7, 2004) .

Homework Assignment 3 (Due Thursday, October 21, 2004) .

Homework Assignment 4 (Due Thursday, November 4, 2004) .

Homework Assignment 5 (Due Thursday, November 18, 2004) .

Homework Assignment 6 (Due Thursday, December 2, 2004) .