Physics 210: Instructions for Term Project Proposals and Presentations

In preparation for the term project proposal presentations on Oct 23 and 25 you must do the following:
  1. Send me (choptuik@physics.ubc.ca) an e-mail message no later than Oct 18 at 12 noon that states your project topic.  Remember that all projects need to be approved by me.  The exception to this is the N-body problem, or variants of it.  However, even if you are going to do the N-body problem and/or you've told me in a lab what you intend to do, you must still send me an e-mail message stating that you have chosen that topic.

    The subject of the message must be

    210 term project topic from <your full name>

    Please be prepared for a very brief response from me indicating that I've approved / not approved your project.

    Again, the deadline for this e-mail is Thursday, Oct 18 at 12 noon, and this deadline is firm.


  2. You must e-mail a copy of your presentation to Arman (arman@physics.ubc.ca) as a PDF document---no other format, including .ppt or .pptx will be accepted. 

    The PDF file must be sent as an attachment to the e-mail. 

    The name of the PDF file must be

    <last-name>.pdf

    The subject of the message must be

    210 term project proposal from <your full name>


    The deadline for all submissions of presentations is Monday, Oct 22 at 12 noon, and this deadline is firm.


  3. IMPORTANT!!  To reiterate

    The e-mail message stating the term project topic gets sent to me (choptuik@physics.ubc.ca)

    The e-mail message with the PDF form of proposal presentation as an attachment gets sent to Arman (arman@physics.ubc.ca)

Presentation order will be alphabetical by last name, and according to lab section as given in the syllabus.  A more detailed schedule will be provided later.

Important note concerning N-body projects:

For most cases I expect you to write a program in which all N bodies generate forces felt by the other particles (whether the interaction is gravitational, electrostatic, or some physically plausible force).  We will discuss the basic equations and discretization process in class. In some cases, such as the Toomre model, many/most of the particles will not generate forces, but the dynamics of a large number of particles will still have to be simulated. In those instances where only a few particles generate forces, there must be some well-defined physical behaviour that you wish to study, and you must ensure that your simulations will generate this behaviour.  If there is any doubt in your mind about this point, simply propose "Gravitational N-body" project and we can attempt to meet your initial goals as things progress (assuming that these goals are possible and compatible with the aims of the course).