A Computational Physics Laboratory and Course

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project provides physics majors with familiarity and confidence in the application of modern computational tools to problems of interest to practicing physicists and other scientists. In addition, this topic provides a natural arena in which to extend experience with the lecture-free Workshop Physics course to an intermediate-level physics course. This project includes the development of a computational physics laboratory and the concurrent development and implementation of curricular materials for an inquiry-based computational physics course. This course utilizes a standard spreadsheet program to investigate the theoretical underpinnings and practical limitations of computation. The course also uses a high-level package (probably Mathematica) for application to more challenging, "real" problems.