PHYS 828

This course introduces students to practical physics problems that cannot be solved analytically and the numerical approaches and computational techniques used to estimate their solutions. Problems will typically be taken from mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, and solid state physics with examples such as n-body orbits, fields in complicated boundaries, electronic structures of atoms, thermal profile of a nuclear waste rod, and non-linear chaotic systems. The computational techniques introduced to solve these problems include Runge-Kutta methods, spectral analysis, relaxation and finite element methods, and Monte Carlo simulations. A brief introduction to the issues of using high performance computing and parallel computing techniques is also included.