Introduction to Computational Physics

The course introduces methods for solving physics problems on the computer. By the use of different mathematically formulated problems from physics, the students are trained in developing, testing, and operating computer programs written in Python for the purpose of solving them on the computer. Furthermore, the students are trained to evaluate the quality of the obtained results. The first part of the course introduces the students to Python by applying it to a set of mathematical problems, while the second part of the course is devoted to applying this knowledge to solve specific problems from physics.

After having completed this course the students should be able to develop programs in Python to solve simple mathematical problems from physics on the computer. They are knowledgeable about the Python modules numpy, scipy and matplotlib and their use. Furthermore, the students have a working knowledge of some more advanced numerical methods from scipy with a focus on being able to read and understand the documentation of such routines, i.e., to understand the input and output from such routines so that they can apply them in their codes.

Lectures and practical exercises.