Computational Physics: Problem Solving with Computers

By Manuel J. Páez, Rubin H. Landau, Manuel J P?ez

Book Overview

This second edition increases the universality of the previous edition by providing all its codes in the Java language, whose compiler and development kit are available for free for essentially all operating systems. In addition, the accompanying CD provides many of the same codes in Fortran 95, Fortran 77, and C, for even more universal application, as well as MPI codes for parallel applications. The book also includes new materials on trial-and-error search techniques, IEEE floating point arithmetic, probability and statistics, optimization and tuning in multiple languages, parallel computing with MPI, JAMA the Java matrix library, the solution of simultaneous nonlinear equations, cubic splines, ODE eigenvalue problems, and Java plotting programs. From the reviews of the first edition: "Landau and Paez's book would be an excellent choice for a course on computational physics which emphasizes computational methods and programming." - American Journal of Physics

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3527406263
• ISBN13: 9783527406265
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Wiley-Vch
• Length: 616 Pages
• Weight: 2.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.8" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

This book is for advanced physics

The number of stars I gave the book is basically irrelevant.I'm writing the review to point out that the book should be called: "computations for *advanced* physics".Most of the topics covered in the book are for second year physics, or advanced topics. That's neither good nor bad, it just depends what you're looking for. If you want to find ways to apply computer programs in a first-years course -- this ain't it. There are probably only a few cases in which the topics are close enough to first-year physics to be relevant (multiple waves on a string; contrasting an idealized model of a pendulum with a "real-one").Having said that, I give the book some pluses for covering a wide range of physics and mathematical topics, and a bit of a minus for writing that can be fairly opaque.