COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS Second Edition

This updated edition provides an introduction to computational physics in order to perform physics experiments on the computer. Computers can be used for a wide variety of scientific tasks, from the simple manipulation of data to simulations of real-world events. This book is designed to provide the reader with a grounding in scientific programming. It contains many examples and exercises developed in the context of physics problems. The new edition now uses C++ as the primary language. The book covers topics such as interpolation, integration, and the numerical solutions to both ordinary and partial differential equations. It discusses simple ideas, such as linear interpolation and root finding through bisection, to more advanced concepts in order to solve complex differential equations. It also contains a chapter on high performance computing which provides an introduction to parallel programming.

BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS

1: Introduction. 2: Getting Comfortable. 3: Interpolation and Data Fitting. 4: Searching for Roots. 5: Numerical Quadrature. 6: Ordinary Differential Equations. 7: Fourier Analysis. 8: Monte Carlo Methods. 9: Partial Differential Equations. 10: Advanced Numerical Quadrature. 11: Advanced ODE Solver and Applications.

12: High Performance Computing. Bibliography. Appendix. Index.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darren Walker, PhD, is a software developer who writes and maintains code that controls various radio telescopes around the UK and helps to analyze the data obtained from these instruments.