Miguel A. Jiménez-Montaño
Departamento de Física y Matemáticas
Universidad de las Américas/Puebla
Puebla, México
jimm@ccs.pue.udlap.mx
A new approach to teaching computational physics is introduced. It is
based on the following assumptions: a) the most important difference
between a physicist and other scientists is not the subject matter
itself, but the conceptual, mathematical and experimental tools he
masters [1]; b) the hierarchical order in Nature allows closed
descriptions at different energetic levels, without necessarily
recurring to micro-descriptions to study macroscopic phenomena of
interest; c) besides studying simple systems, modern physics should
also deal with complex (non-linear, chaotic) systems, with the help of
modern computational tools. An introductory course in computational
physics is described, in which computational models of physical
systems (such as the Ising Model) are appropriately modified for their
application in other fields, such as biochemistry or the social
sciences [2,3]. This approach not only helps students to get a better
feeling of the physical world, but gives students from non-physics
careers the opportunity to apply physical models to their areas of
interest. Besides being interesting, the course is fun for the
students, perhaps because it relates physics with their own
interests.
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