Note: this page is in the process of being updated from last year's PHY 201 page, so some material may not be precisely true for this year's class. This notice will go away when the updating process is complete.

PHY201 - Physics Computations II

All course materials and worksheets will appear here

Instructor

  • Prof. S. D. Mahanti - Rm 4269 BPS Bldg., 355-9200 extension 2303, mahanti@pa.msu.edu
  • In addition there will be a teaching assistant

    Course Outline

    This one credit course is the second of three such courses (PHY102, PHY201, PHY301) designed to teach undergraduate physics students how to use computers to solve physics problems. PHY102 emphasizes the use of Mathematica. PHY201 develops your knowledge of programming in Fortran 90, and to use Mathematica. PHY301 covers JAVA, but we will also have to talk about C++ and C which are the predecessors to JAVA. Mathematica will continue to be used from time to time.

    Course Assessment

  • 75% will come from your solution to the weekly worksheets. For each worksheet which is not completed your grade is reduced by 0.5. If you complete all the worksheets but do not do the lab. exam, you get a 3.0 grade.
  • 25% will come from a one hour practical exam at the end of the semester. This exam will be held in the last week of semester during your regular lab. time. In the exam you will be asked to write simple Fortran code and to use Mathematica. Nothing new will be introduced. You will need to know how to use the online help facilities.

    Classes are in Room 1240 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Bldg. (BPS)

    Session I: 4 - 7 Monday
    Session II: 4 - 7 Wednesday

    The worksheets

    Worksheet 1 - due 6th Sept. at 5pm.
    Worksheet 2 - due 13th Sept. at 5pm.
    Worksheet 3 - due 20th Sept. at 5pm.
    Worksheet 4 - due 27th Sept. at 5pm.
    Worksheet 5 - due 4th Oct. at 5pm.
    Worksheet 6 - due 18th Oct. at 5pm(two weeks for this worksheet).
    Worksheet 7 - due 25th Oct. at 5pm.
    Worksheet 8 - due 8th Nov. at 5pm(two weeks for this worksheet).
    Worksheet 9 - due 22nd Nov. at 5pm(two weeks for this worksheet).
    Exam information - Dec. 2 (Session I) and Dec. 4 (Session II)

    Reference materials

  • Text that will be followed quite closely "An introduction to Fortran 90 for scientific computing", by James M. Ortega.
  • There are many online introductions to fortran. Introduction to Fortran Reference Manual introduces Fortran 77 and gives links to online fortran tutorials and other resources, written by Aleks Donev.
  • Key www site Numerical recipes online . You will need to read some sections of this book.
  • A www site with lots of free fortran stuff.
  • "Fortran 90/95 explained" second edition. by Michael Metcalf and John Reid. Oxford University Press, 1999. More advanced than Ortega and more recent. Buy it if you are serious about scientific computing.
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