P410 Computing Applications in Physics
P609 Computational Physics
Department of Physics, Indiana University
Fall, 2006

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 Lindley Hall 030

Note that this is a cluster of Apple computers in the southwest corner of the basement of the computer science building. Please make an account for yourself before coming to class.

Setting up an Account

You should set up accounts on the ADS system and the STC Unix Workstations if you don't already have them. To set them up follow the directions at this link: http://uits.iu.edu/scripts/ose.cgi?alzw.ose.help. Go to the "Getting additional computing accounts" link and follow the directions,

or go directly to this link: https://itaccounts.iu.edu/

Computer Help

Knowledge Base
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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, Jan Tobochnik and Wolfgang Christian has just come out in its third edition. There is a web page for the text that you might want to visit. This new edition of the text stresses object oriented programming. The previous examples in the book were in True Basic. They have now switched to Java. I have not yet decided whether I want to make much use of Java in our class.

Student Academic Support Center

Material Relating to Lectures Will Appear Here

Notes for Lecture 1 - Introduction (August 29).

Notes for Lecture 2 - UNIX Basics, Hierarchical File System, Special Characters, Redirection, (August 31).

Supplementary Notes for Lecture 2 - On-line Help and Unix Tutorials.

Axis Documentation (PDF).

Notes for Lecture 3 - AWK, Introduction to Euler Method (September 5).

Notes for Lecture 4 - Error Analysis for the Euler Method, Shell Scripts (September 7).

Notes for Lecture 5 - Error Analysis for the Euler Method (II), Introduction to Chapter 3 (September 12).

Notes for Lecture 6 - Newton's Laws of Motion, Energy Nonconservation (September 14).

Notes for Lecture 7 - AFS, ssh, Euler-Richardson Algorithm; Multiple Graphs; Body Falling in Position Dependent Potential (September 19).

Notes for Lecture 8 - Printing From Nations to Lindley, Body Falling in Position Dependent Potential (continued), Graphing velocity ratio (September 21).

Notes for Lecture 9 - Root finding, Running adapt.c to find height, Oscillatory motion (September 26).

Notes for Lecture 11 - How Can We Do Better Than the Euler Algorithm? (PDF) (October 3).

Notes for Lecture 12 - Final Project, Introduction to Mathematica (October 5).

Notes for Lecture 13 - Biased Estimators Using Mathematica (October 10).

Notes for Lecture 14 - Hist, Application of the Jackknife Method (October 12).

Notes for Lecture 15 - Jackknife Mean, Jackknife Method Via Mathematica, Introduction to Chaos and Logistic Map (October 17).

Notes for Lecture 16 - AHO, NDSolve, Chaos and Logistic Map (continued) (October 19).

Notes for Lecture 20 - Hit or Miss Method, Inverse Transform Method (November 7).

Notes for Lecture 21 - Inverse Transform Method Applied, Box-Muller Method (November 9).

Notes for Lecture 22 - Metropolis Algorithm, Autocorrelations (November 16).

Notes for Lecture 23 - Monte Carlo Error Analysis (November 21).

Notes for Lecture 24 - Shell Scripts for HW, Monte Carlo Error Analysis (continued), Multiprecision Library (November 28).

Notes for Lecture 25 - Pseudorandom Numbers Generators, Serial Correlation Tests (November 30).

Notes for Lecture 26 - Feedback Shift Register Random Number Generator, Fitting Data (December 1).

Notes from 2005 Lectures

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 7. 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 21, 2006) .

Homework Assignment 2 (Due Thursday, October 5, 2006) .

Homework Assignment 3 (Due Thursday, October 19, 2006) .

Homework Assignment 4 (Due Tuesday, November 7, 2006) .

Homework Assignment 5 (Due Thursday, November 30, 2006) .

Homework Assignments From 2005
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) .