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Class Room: 222 Natural Sciences Complex Class Hours: Mon Wed Fri 5:00 - 5:50 p.m. Home Page: http://www.physics.buffalo.edu/phy411-506/ UB Unix: ~phygons/phy411-506/ Physics Cluster: ~phygons/phy411-506/ Instructor: Dr. Richard J. Gonsalves Office Hours: Tue Thu 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. in 323 Fronczak; or by appointment. Telephone: (716) 645-2017 or 645-3043 Email: phygons@acsu.buffalo.edu
To benefit from this course you must enjoy working with computers, and you should be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time on the homework assignments. Familiarity with some programming language will be helpful but is not required. You should also:PHY 410-505 Computational Physics I is recommended as a prerequisite for a course, but is not required. If you have not taken PHY 410-505 you will need to spend extra time at the beginning of the semester learning how to program physics simulations using Java.
- be familiar with Newtonian Mechanics and Thermal & Statistical Physics at the upper-division undergraduate level (PHY 301-302, 405-406),
- be familiar with calculus and ordinary differential equations,
- have access to a computer with Java development tools (for example, on the Physics Computer Cluster, UB Unix workstations, or on a Linux, Windows or Macintosh personal computer), and
- have access to the Internet for course and reference materials.
The required textbook for this course is An Introduction to Computer Simulation Methods, by Harvey Gould and Jan Tobochnik, Second Edition, (Addison-Wesley, 1996). The goal of this course is to learn how to use a computer to analyze and simulate interesting models of physical systems, many of which are too complicated to solve analytically. Topics for study will be chosen from Chapter 7 "Random Processes", Chapter 11 "Numerical Integration and Monte Carlo Methods", Chapter 12 "Random Walks", Chapter 15 "Complexity", Chapter 16 "The Microcanonical Ensemble", Chapter 17 "Monte Carlo Simulation of the Canonical Ensemble", and Chapter 18 "Quantum Systems". Optional recommended textbooks are: Computational Physics by J.M. Thijssen (Cambridge, 1999), a more advanced supplementary text; and Numerical Recipes in C by Press, Teukolsky, Vetterling, and Flannery (Cambridge, 1992), an excellent reference on coding numerical algorithms, which is also available online.
Simulations will be developed in Java, a modern object-oriented programming language. An introduction to Java language syntax and programming constructs will be provided; and Java console programs, graphical programs and animations will be developed for the simulations. A Java Software Development Kit can be downloaded for free, and online documentation and tutorials are also available. A good Java programming book may be helpful, for example Core Java by Horstmann and Cornell, or Thinking in Java by Eckel. While Java will be the principal programming language for this course, some use will also be made of Maple, which is available on UB computing systems and in an inexpensive student version for personal computers.
There will be a homework assignment due each week based on the material covered in lecture. Graduate students may be given some assignments based on graduate-level physics. You may discuss the assignments with your colleagues, but you are expected to perform and write up the assignments individually. Your assignment may be hand-written, typeset using a word-processing program, or a printout of material posted on your home page if you have one. Late assignments will be discounted by a factor (1 - 0.1t), where t is the number of working days after the due date. Homework assignments will count for 65% of your final grade. PHY 411 and PHY 506 students will be graded separately.
There will be a mid-term exam and a final exam. These tests will consist of short questions and problems based on the lecture material and the homework assignments. PHY 411 students will have separate and simpler exams. The mid-term exam will count for 15% and the final for 20% of your grade.
If you have a disability, (physical or psychological) and require reasonable accomodations to enable you to participate in this course, such as note takers, readers, or extended time on exams and assignments, please contact the Office of Disability Services, 25 Capen Hall, 645-2608, and also see me during the first two weeks of class. ODS will provide you with information and review appropriate arrangements for reasonable accomodations.
Classes begin ... Tue Jan 16 Last day to add or drop courses ... Fri Jan 26 Spring Break ... Mon Mar 5 - Fri Mar 9 Mid-term exam ... Wed Mar 14 Last day to resign with "R" grade ... Fri Mar 16 Last day of classes ... Mon Apr 30 Reading Days ... May 1 - May 2 Final examination period ... Thu May 3 - Thu May 10 Final Exam ... Thu May 10, 11:45-2:45, 120 Baldy
Questions or comments:
phygons@acsu.buffalo.edu