In spite of the difficulty of adding new courses to an already full undergraduate physics curriculum, the education of undergraduate physics students would be greatly enhanced by learning computational methods. The standard method of addressing this need is to offer a computational physics course. We have chosen to use the standard three credit hours allotted to computational physics by offering three separate one-credit laboratories, one for sophomores, one for juniors, and one for seniors. Students are introduced to symbolic methods using MAPLE when they are sophomores, and to numerical methods using MATLAB beginning in their junior year. This introduction helps prepare students for their upper division courses, for the research they will do for their senior projects, and spreads computational methods throughout the undergraduate curriculum.
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February 2005
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February 01 2005
Teaching computational physics as a laboratory sequence
Ross L. Spencer
Ross L. Spencer
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602
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Ross L. Spencer
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602
Am. J. Phys. 73, 151–153 (2005)
Article history
Received:
November 13 2003
Accepted:
November 08 2004
Citation
Ross L. Spencer; Teaching computational physics as a laboratory sequence. Am. J. Phys. 1 February 2005; 73 (2): 151–153. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.1842751
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