Physics 329: Introduction to Computational Physics: Course News
This document will be updated throughout the course
Monday, December 14
Unofficial Final Grades
(sorted by last 4 digits of student number)
1688: A
2832: A
3328: A-
3696: A
3918: A
5059: A
5213: A-
6497: B
6865: A
7295: A
8039: A
8067: CR
8465: A+
8507: A+
9069: A
9432: B
9942: A-
Tuesday, December 8
The final exam will be held on Friday, December 11 in
from 2:00 to 5:00 pm
Thursday, November 19
I have updated the Software page
to include descriptions of
- jv1: a filter which reads two
columns of numbers from standard input and then sends the data to
jser
- sphplot: A Fortran-callable
routine which uses the SGI GL library to plot a collection of
spheres in 3-dimensions. Those of you implementing "charges
on a sphere" for your term-project should find this routine
useful, provided you are actually sitting at einstein's
console.
Tuesday, November 10
I've added a link in the
Finite Difference Methods page to output
which illustrates some utility commands---dvmesh,
nf and paste---which you may find use for
in your homework assignments and term
projects. Note in particular that the filter nf can do esentially
arbitrary arithmetic on one or more columns of numbers (use input
redirection to read the columns from a file).
Tuesday, November 10
Homework 6, due Wednesday December 2, is now available on-line. Hard copy will be available
in tomorrow's lecture.
Wednesday, November 4
Note that the p329f library contains a function
r8arg which can be used to parse real arguments from
the command line. Typical usage follows
real*8 r8arg
real*8 thearg
c Parse the second argument as a real number
thearg = r8arg(2,-1.0d0-60)
Note that the first argument is an integer specifying which argument
is to be parsed, and the second argument is a real*8 value
specifying the default return value, i.e. the value returned if
the specified argument does not exist on the command line, or
cannot be converted to a real value. See the
code p329fsa.f for
a complete program which uses r8arg. Another sample
program which uses the routine is
meps.f
which (approximately) computes machine epsilon.
Wednesday, November 4
Further to the item below, the On-Line books server now appears to
be chronically busy so, at least for the time being, you may have
to resort to using hard copies of Numerical Recipes. I have a
copy which you can borrow on a short term basis, and there should
be a copy in the PMA library reserves.
Wednesday, November 4
Some of you have recently been experiencing problems with the links in the
Course Pages to the on-line Numerical Recipes sites
(Home page
and
Books Online
).
Apparently there is some re-organization of the Web Site which
hosts On-Line books and the old links no longer
work. I am in the process of updating the web pages
and, in particular, have verified that the links from the
Finite Difference Page work from the PMCL. Note, however, that the
new links are in all likelihood temporary, so please let me know if
and when you encounter further problems. Thanks to
Alex and
Brandon for
bringing this to my attention.
Monday, November 2
Ping pointed out an important typo in the Notes on the 1D Wave Equation
handout
(PS). The last equation, on page 8,
should read
delta t
lambda = ------- <= 1
delta x
not
delta x
lambda = ------- <= 1
delta t
The on-line notes have been updated; please amend your hard-copy.
Saturday, October 31
to the following Phyiscs 329 students who were recently
inducted into
Sigma Pi Sigma,
the honor society of the
Society of Physics Students (SPS):
Alex Adai,
J.R. Amador,
Kelly Bird,
Riley Crane,
Jason Day,
Lon Risinger
and
Tryge Ristroph.
Wednesday, October 28
As discussed in class, the second test is now scheduled for
.
Tuesday, October 27
Homework 5, due Friday November 13, is now available on-line. Hard copy will be available
in tomorrow's lecture.
Wednesday, October 21
Note that the routine dmfrom reads a matrix in column-major
rather than row-major order. e.g, if your matrix input file is
2 2
1.0 2.0
3.0 4.0
then the matrix which is read is actually
1.0 3.0
2.0 4.0
This may cause some confusion, particularly if you are checking your
results with Maple. Thanks to
Riley for bringing this
to my attention once again---but note that this point is
made in the handout.
Tuesday, October 6
Homework 4, due Wednesday October 21, is now available on-line. Hard copy will be available
in tomorrow's lecture.
Tuesday, September 29
Those of you who have implemented the "chaos" game in 3d (one
of the optional parts of Homework 3, Problem 3), may be interested
in a simple plotting utilityb plot3d, which can
only be run on the console of one of the SGI machines.
plot3d expects no arguments on the command line; if
any are given, a usage message will result:
% plot3d
usage: plot3d
Reads x, y, z triples from standard input
then renders points using GL graphics calls
F1 key toggles tumble mode
ESC key exits
As the usage message indicates, plot3d reads x, y, z
triples from standard input (three numbers per line) and then
plots the points. As an example, here is some sample input I have
prepared in a file called 'input':
% head -10 input
-0.258838 0.851213 -0.36666
-0.639729 0.130979 -0.391663
-0.830175 -0.229138 -0.404165
-0.415088 -0.114569 0.422918
-0.207544 0.531971 0.00312541
0.406539 -0.0286423 -0.206771
0.203269 0.574934 -0.311719
-0.408676 -0.00716057 -0.364193
0.305973 -0.298208 -0.39043
0.152986 0.440152 -0.403548
I can then view this data using plot3d as follows:
% plot3d < input
Once the graphics window appears, you can use the 'F1' key to
toggle a "tumble mode" which will allow you to better discern
the 3-dimensional structure of the input. Use the 'ESC' key
to exit from the program. (Be sure the cursor is in the
graphics window when you depress either the 'F1' or 'ESC' key).
As stated above, you need to run this program on an SGI console.
See me during regular business hours if you would like to do so.
Sunday, September 27
Please note that there was a typo in Problem 3 of the original handout
for Homework 3. The last sentence
before the "Optional" part of the problem should have read
... (i.e. plot with dots).
rather than
... (i.e. plot with points).
Thanks to Brandon for
pointing this out. The online version has been updated. (Plotting
with points will result in symbols which are too large to reveal the
"fine structure" of the plot.)
Thursday, September 10
Note that you may not be able to send me e-mail
via the course home page (i.e. by clicking on
matt@infeld.ph.utexas.edu),
particularly if you are using Netscape on the PMCL
machines. The reason is that, by default, your return-mail address
in Netscape is set to some generic ID which is not allowed to
send any mail. To fix this, choose Preferences from
the Edit menu, click on Mail & Groups then Identity
and fill in the form, ensuring that you type a correct e-mail address
in the EmailAdress slot. Thanks to
J.R.
for reporting the problem and
David
for providing a quick diagnosis.
Wednesday, September 9
Please note that there was a typo in the due time for
Homework 2
as
originally assigned. The correct due time is 11:00am (i.e.
at the start of class), not 11:00pm. The online
version has been updated. (The handout
for
Homework 1
also had this typo, but it's too late to do anything
about it!)
Tuesday, September 8
The previously posted procedure for changing your shell on the linux
machines does not work. (Thanks to
Jeff Holmes
for pointing this out). Until further
notice, contact Jason Ventrella,
and ask him to change your login shell, if you so desire.
Friday, September 4
Homework 2, due Friday September 18, is now available on-line. Hard copy will be available
in today's lecture.
Thursday, August 27
I've corrected a typo in Homework 1, Problem 2. The question should
read:
... (c) at least 5 Web pages that have something to
do with gamma-ray bursters.
Please download the new version or wait for hard copy in class.
Thursday, August 27
Homework 1 is now available on-line. Hard copy will be available
in tomorrow's lecture.
Thursday, August 27
The following students had accounts on the Phys. Dept. Public Unix systems
prior to the start of this course:
- Alex Adai
- Laetitia Cresciucci
- Jeffrey Holmes
- Wenjun Li
If your name is on this list, then the system administrator has NOT
provided you with the "PHY329 default" version of the following files in your
home directory:
In addition, your default shell is bash rather than tcsh.
If you wish to change your default shell to tcsh (again, this
is only on the Phys. Dept. machines---all of your accounts on the Relativity
SGI machines are set up to use tcsh), login to utpapa, and
use the chsh (change shell) command:
linux1 % rlogin utpapa
===========================================================================
Welcome to utpapa.ph.utexas.edu, an IBM RS/6000 running
AIX 3.2.5.
.
.
.
utpapa % chsh
Current available shells: