Physics 3301. Scientific Computing 3. Course Outline
| Lecturers: | Prof. B A Pailthorpe, Dr. N Bordes; plus guest lecturers. |
| bap@vislab.usyd.edu.au ph 9351-3005 | |
| Tutors: | Daniel Mitchell & Steven Manos. |
| mitch@vislab.usyd.edu.au smanos@vislab.usyd.edu.au | |
| Duration: | 13+1 weeks, Semester 1. |
| Format: | 2 hr Lectures + 2 hr lab (hands-on exercises in VisLab) |
| Textbook: | Landau, R. H. & M.J. Paez, "Computational Physics: problem solving with computers" (Wiley, 1997,2000). |
| Assessment: | by combination of Assignments; Project; Exam (open book). |
| Course Description |
| Course Format |
| Course Assessment |
| A collection of Tips for the Lab Exercises |
| WEEK 1 | Lecture 1 |
Intro to disciplines of Computational Science and Computational Engineering; Introduction to Unix, Computing Environments | |
| Lab 1 |
1. Intro to VisLab facilities and projects; user help; web sites (Ben Simons); Unix - 10 basic commands; man pages, files, printing; 2. Simple programs, compilers; examples from Landau - Integration, ... 3. Simple plots: Xgraph; gnuplot, etc. | ||
| WEEK 2 | Lecture 2 |
Numbers & Machine Precision; Numerical Analysis, Errors; Numerical Integration | |
| Lecture 3 |
Types of Scientific Computations: Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Roots, | ||
| Lab 2 |
1. Ex. in Numerical Integration; 2. Ex. in Linear Algebra; 3. Ex. in Root finding, Minimisation | ||
| WEEK 3 | Lecture 4 |
Differentiation, Differential Equations, Applications, Systems of Equations. | |
| Lecture 5 |
FFTs, Random Processes: Monte Carlo, Applications, Molecular Dynamic Simulations | ||
| Lab 3 |
1. Non-linear Eqns.; 2. Root finding Note: topics below may be adjusted to suit | ||
| WEEK 4 | Lecture 6 |
Software Libraries: Numerical Recipes (in Fortran, C, Pascal); NetLib, SLATEC, LAPACK, CERN; NAG, IMSL, ESSL; Random Number generators | |
| Lecture 7 |
Tools, Environments, Utilities graphics: Excel, Kaleidagraf, gnuplot, Xgraph; Mathematica, MATLAB | ||
| Lab 4 |
1. Graphing utilities in Unix; 2. Non-linear Eqns. | ||
| WEEK 5 | Lecture 8 |
Fourier methods & FFTs | |
| Lecture 9 |
Quantum Mechanical applications, Numerical solutions. | ||
| Lab 5 |
1. Differential Eqns.; 2. Random Numbers | ||
| WEEK 6 | Lecture 10 |
High Performance Systems, Tools & Techniques vector
supercomputers, parallel supercomputers; | |
| Lecture 11 |
High Performance Fortran, Message Passing Interface, Parallel
Virtual Machine | ||
| WEEKS 7-9 | Lectures 12-14 | TBA, Applications in Mechanics; E&M, QM | |
| Lab 6-8 |
1. Exercises on 20-processor SGi at ATP lab. | ||
| WEEKS 10-11 | Projects (4 hr pw) - topics selected from 9-11, above. | ||
| WEEK 12 | Projects Presentations | ||
| WEEK 13 | Exam/Assessment Ex. (2 hr., open book, in lab). | ||
Environment: VisLab: Unix workstations (& PC-NT & Mac); Fortran & C; Mathematica & MATLAB; AVS; html, Java, vrml
References:
| Smarr, L & Kaufmann, "Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science" (Scientific American Library, NY. 1993). |
| Fosdick, Lloyd D., E R Jessup, C J C Schauble & G Domik, "An introduction to High-Performance Scientific Computing", MIT Press, 1996. |
| Tan, P. T., "A Physicists' Guide to Mathematica" (Academic Press, San Diego, 1997). |
| The Mathworks Inc., "The Student Edition of MATLAB: version 5, user's guide", (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1997) |