Physics

SHAHRAM RAHATLOU

The goal is to give students the practical ability to use a modern personal computer and perform the basic operations of use (on, off, data and program management), on proprietary OS or open source.

Ability to use a personal computer for writing programs with a text editor, using the terminal, and knowing the basic commands of the Linux operating system.

There are no pre-requisites on programming, but the student is expected to be able to perform a logical reasoning and to have sufficient mathematical bases to interpretic complex equations. It is furthermore important to know the binary numerical system and to have the scholastic bases of formal logics, even if such concepts will be briefly repeated during the lessons.

The course teaches basic notions of programming and numerical analysis to develop simple computing algorithms.

C language instructions will be discussed and used to create reference programs for numerical methods, such as interpolation, numerical integration and differential equations solution.

Barone, Marinari, Organtini, Ricci-Tersenghi "Programmazione Scientifica", Pearson Education
Al Kelley and Ira Pohl "C: didattica e programmazione", Addison-Wesley

The course is taught at the blackboard with the aid of slides to project the production of programs. There are also training sessions at the PC where the students implement programs on the basis of a canvas. The output of these sessions is shared on e-learning and commented. Finally, online polling Apps are utilized to keep the attention and to have an immediate feedback on the comprehention of the class.

Attendance to the lectures is not mandatory but strongly recommended.

Participation and the performance at the lab sessions provides bonus points that will be included in the final grade.

The exam consists in implementing a program in C to solve a simple physics or math problem or numerical simulation described in a text. The final grade takes will include also additional bonus points based on the evaluation of lab sessions during the course.

Log in to the computer using the provided credentials.
Open the Emacs text editor and write a program in C and Python.
Compile a C program and run it.