Computational Physics

FitzHugh-Nagumo Spiral Waves Null Geodesics Escape Set Flux Creep Automaton

Instructor

John Lindner
Taylor Hall 107, x2120
JLindner@Wooster.edu

Lectures & Labs

1-4 PM Monday & Wednesday
Taylor 111 & Taylor 209
Schedule

Evaluation

The course grade is based on 15 class assignments and a final individualized simulation.

Suggested Texts

Computational Physics (2nd Edition) by Nicholas J. Giordano & Hisao Nakanishi
C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian W. Kernighan & Dennis M. Ritchie

Physics Topics

Simple harmonic oscillator, Duffing nonlinear oscillator, chaos in the 3-body problem, waves on a string, quantum eigenvalues, quantum evolution, Ising ferromagnet phase transition, Poincaré section, symmetric top, bike wheel gyroscope, anharmonic crystal.

Software Tools

We will acquire skill in the C programming language and in selected extensions from C++ and Objective-C. We will exploit the Mac OS X 10 Developer's Tools, including Xcode 3 and Interface Builder 3, which will enable us to simply build sophisticated graphical user interfaces. We will use OpenGL to create realistic 3D graphics and animations.