Hiroshi Matsuoka
Assistant Professor
Illinois State University
Department of Physics
Normal, IL 61790
Minor Proposers:
R.F. Martin, Jr., P.D. Morse II, D.E. Sanders, R.D. Young, and R. Bogue
Course Description
Methods of Computational Science has been offered for the first time during the Spring 1995 semester to a group consisting of 5 Chemistry majors, 5 Physics majors, and one Applied Computer Science major. The course is intended for second- or third-year undergraduate students, and is team taught by the primary authors of this proposal. Students who enroll in the course are expected to have completed at least one year each of general chemistry, general physics, and calculus, and are required to have a knowledge of FORTRAN (or other programming language). The course is heavily oriented toward computational projects. The students in Methods of Computational Science this semester completed 10 computational assignments on a variety of topics, to be described in more detail below, ranging from the dynamics of the plane pendulum to the phase transition in a two-dimensional Ising model. The lecture content of the course focuses on theoretical background, explanations of the algorithms to be implemented by the students, and discussions of the results of the simulations.
Students in the course carry out most of the simulations on two UNIX-based workstations: one IBM RS/6000 and one Silicon Graphics Personal Iris. Access to these workstations is provided through several Macintosh computers. For most of the simulations, results are downloaded to a Macintosh for plotting or visualization.
The Methods of Computational Science course focuses on three widely-used simulation techniques: solution of ordinary differential equations for few- degree-of-freedom systems using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method, and the molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods for many-body systems. For each simulation method, the students are presented with at least one application to a chemical or physical system. Disadvantages and advantages of the various algorithms employed are discussed, along with a mention of other possible simulation methods. Any specific questions or concerns about the course description should be directed to Hiroshi Matsuoka at hmb@entropy.phy.ilstu.edu