PS232

PS232 - Computational Methods in the Physical Sciences

Instructor: Dr. Andri M. Gretarsson

Announcements

Exam 2 will be held in class Tuesday, Nov. 24. It will cover the material from the week of Oct. 12 (fitting in Matlab) through the present time (linear and non-linear oscillators in Mathematica). This is the same material as was reinforced by Homeworks 7-10. The exam is open book but closed notes, just like Exam 1. In other words, you may bring your texts "Basics of Matlab and Beyond" and "Mathematica for Physics" to the exam. You may not bring additional notes and your texts must not contain any annotation or "margin notes".

Homework 11 is the final homework. It will be due on Tuesday, Dec 1. It will consist of problems from Chapters 4 and 5 in "Mathematica for Physics."

The final Exam for the class will occur during the examination period. The final exam will be paper based and comprehensive. In other words, it will cover the material of the entire course. Further information about the final exam will be given during the final week of class.

General

Course Structure	Syllabus, Detailed Schedule
Matlab Help	Videos (alt), Examples, Cheat Sheet, Quick Ref, more...
Mathematica Help	Videos, Examples, more...
Books and Software	BOMAB Companion Software, Official Matlab Manuals (online)

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Homework Assignments and Solutions

#	Due Date	Problems Assigned	Solutions
0.5	Thu. Aug. 27	Read Chapters 1-5 in "Basics of Matlab and Beyond."
1	Tue. Sept. 1	Homework 1	Problem set 1
1.5	Thu. Sep. 3	Read Chapters 6-10 in "Basics of Matlab and Beyond."
2	Tue. Sept. 8	Homework 2	Problem set 2
2.5	Thu. Sep. 10	Read Chapters 11-16 in "Basics of Matlab and Beyond."
3	Tue. Sept. 15	Homework 3	Problem set 3
4	Tue. Sept. 22	Homework 4
4b	Tue. Sept. 29	Read Chapters 17-21 in "Basics of Matlab and Beyond."
5	Tue. Oct. 6	Homework 5. You will also need the files 1, 2 , and 3.
6	Tue. Oct. 13	Homework 6. You will also need dsho.m.
7	Tue. Oct. 20	Homework 7. You will also need population.txt and dow.mat.
8	Thu. Nov. 5	Homework 8. You will also need wirestretch.mat, ringdown.mat and signalfile.mat.	Problem set 8
8.5	Tue. Nov. 9	Read Chapter 1 in "Mathematica for Physics" (MFP).
9	Thu. Nov. 12	MFP, exercises: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.7, 1.9, 1.11, 1.14.
10	Tue. Nov. 17	MFP, exercises: 3.4, 3.9. Ttreat exercise 3.9 like a short formal lab report and hand in a 3-5 page report. Read Section 5.2 in MFP and do exerciese 5.1.
11	Tue. Dec. 1	MFP, exercises: (TBA)