Numerical Methods as an Integrated Part of Physics Education

Abstract

During the last decade we have witnessed an impressive development in so-called interpreted languages and computational environments such as Maple, Mathematica, IDL, Matlab etc. Problems which until recently were typically solved on mainframe machines and written in computing languages such as Fortran or C/C++, can now easily be solved on standard PCs with the bonus of immediate visualizations of the results. In our undergraduate programs an often posed question is how to incorporate and exploit efficiently these advances in the standard physics and mathematics curriculum, without detracting the attention from the classical and basic theoretical and experimental topics to be covered. Furthermore, if students are trained to use such tools at early stages in their education, do such tools really enhance and improve the learning environment? And, perhaps even more important, does it lead to a better physics understanding? Here we present one possible approach, where computational topics are gradually baked into our undergraduate curriculum in Mathematics and Physics, Astronomy and Meteorology. We focus on training our students to use general programming tools in solving physics problems, in addition to the classical analytic problems. By this approach, the students gain an expertise that they can build upon in their future studies and careers. We use mainly Java, Matlab and Maple as computational environments. Our students are now capable of handling at an early stage in their education more realistic physics problems than before. We believe firmly that, in addition to educating modern scientists, this promotes a better physics understanding for a majority of the students.