Meets MWF 10:00-10:50 Regener Hall 118
Instructor: Prof. Keith Lidke
Room 1140, Physics and Astronomye-mail: klidke@unm.edu
phone: (505)277-0302
Teaching Assistant: Hanieh Farsibaf
e-mail: hmfarsibaf@unm.eduOffice Hours
Prof. Lidke: Each day after class or by appointment.Hanieh: Thursday 11:30-12:30 in lobby of Physics (Lomas & Yale) or by appointment.
Overview
This class is designed as an introduction to programming for the undergraduate physics major. The class begins with no assumption of prior programming experience. An emphasis will be on building strong programming skills using the MATLAB programming environment. Applications and examples will include data analysis (curve fitting and optimization), simulating physical systems, solving systems of linear equations and Monte Carlo techniques.
There is no required text for the class.
Grading
Letter grades correspond with numerical scores as given by this scale: Grade Scale. Grades will be assigned based on the following:
Homework (70%)
Weekly homework assignments will consist of problems that must be solved using MATLAB code. Each problem will be scored as 1 or 0 based on whether the code produces the correct result or not. The grader will not attempt to fix code in any way. An additional .1 points of extra credit will be given for each problem for well-documented code. I encourage students to study together and learn from each other. However, all homework must be created in its entirety by each student. Evidence of copied homework will result in all involved students being dropped from the class. Assignments are due at 24:00 on the due date. No late assignments will be accepted.The grader must be able to easily run your homework and therefore there must not be any confusion between your submissions and that from others. Homework submissions must be in the format: "LastName_HW1.m". If the solution consists of multiple files because of multiple problems or functions, then name files "LastName_HW1_Problem1.m" or "LastName_HW1_FuncName.m".
Submission Procedure: Login to your learn.unm.edu account. Find the current homework assignment for Physics 290. Upload each *.m file as an separate file. Let me know if you have problems. As a LAST resort if you are having problems, you may email me your files with subject line '290 Homework X'.
Quizes (20%)
Each Friday class will start with a short ~10 point quiz. Lowest scoring quiz of the semester will be dropped. No make-up quizzes will be offered.Final Exam (10%)
Home Work Assignments
Lecture Notes
| Date | Skills and Concepts Discussed | MATLAB Lecture Notes |
|---|---|---|
12-Jan |
Working in the Command Window and Editor; 'for' and 'while' loops; Using 'help' and 'doc'; Basic data types. |
Jan_12.m |
14-Jan |
Arrays and Matrices; Plotting; Functions. Additional Material: Printing text to Command Window (fprintf); Conditional Statements; |
Jan_14.m AddVars.m |
16-Jan |
Structures; Intro to Object Oriented Programming |
Jan_16.m CheckPrime.m LaserData |
21-Jan |
Creating a class definition; Creating and using objects. |
Jan_21.m LaserData2.m |
23-Jan |
Practice creating a class definition and using objects; Short intro to numerical integration. |
Jan_23.m CalcPrimes.m |
26-Jan |
Matrix versus Element-wise operations; Numerical integration; Anonymous functions. |
Jan_26.m NIntegrate.m |
28-Jan |
Switch-Case conditional; Class constructor and destructor; Creating video files; Mass on a spring visualization. |
Jan_28.m ConTest.m Mass on spring math |
30-Jan |
Solving first order ODEs using the Euler method |
Jan_30.m |
2-Feb |
Solving second order ODEs using the Euler method |
Feb_2.m |
4-Feb |
Saving and loading files; Solving second order ODEs using THE Runge-Kutta method |
Feb_4.m |
6-Feb |
General Q&A. Practice with classes. |
Feb_6.m SimpleClass.m |
9-Feb |
Rutherford Scattering |
Feb_9.m CentralPotential.m ODESolver.m |
11-Feb |
Kepler Orbits |
Feb_11.m Planet.m |
13-Feb |
Error handling; Some simple linear algebra. |
Feb_13.m mycross.m |
16-Feb |
Root finding and minimization: Newton's method. |
|
18-Feb |
Root finding and minimization: Newton's method continued. |
Feb_18.m NewtonSolver.m |
20-Feb |
MATLAB's 'Publish' functionality; Root finding and minimization: Secant method. |
|
23-Feb |
Intro to random numbers; Finding a function minimum on an interval. |
Feb_23.m MinFinder290.m |
25-Feb |
Finding a function minimum using the Golden Section Search method. |
Feb_25.m updateGRInterval.m |
27-Feb |
Snow Day! |
|
2-March |
More about Golden Section Search; Rutherford scattering revisited. |
|
4-March |
Central Limit Theorem; Random Walks |
March_4.m |
6-March |
Multi-dimensional Function minimization using 'fminsearch' |
March_6m |
16-March |
Logic with vectors; Finding pi with random numbers |
March_16m |
18-March |
Statistics of constant rate processes; Waiting time distribution |
See March_20 |
20-March |
Statistics of constant rate processes; Poisson Distribution; Intro to parameter estimation |
March_20.m |
23-March |
Parameter estimation from noisy data |
March_23.m firstOPoly_Poiss.m firstOPoly_Norm.m |
25-March |
Uncertainty of Parameter Estimates I |
March_25.m firstOPoly_Norm.m |
27-March |
The Monte Hall Problem; Intro to Bayes' Rule. |
A student simulation from class |
30-March |
Uncertainty of Parameter Estimates II |
March_30.m PoissLambdaLogL.m |
3-April |
Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC); Intro to programmatic GUI |
April_3.m simplegui.m |
6-April |
Using a GUI from a class |
April_6.m FirstOrderPoly.m |
8-April |
The Symbolic math toolbox |
April_8.m |
10-April |
Complex numbers and waves |
April_10.m |
13-April |
Interference and Diffraction (Continued from April 10) |
April_13.m |
15-April |
Intro to Fourier Transforms |
April_15.m |
17-April |
More Fourier Transforms |
April_17.m |
20-April |
1D Ising Model |
April_20.m |
22-April |
2D Ising Model |
April_22.m |
24-April |
2D Ising Model continued; correlation length; Polymer models |
April_24.m WLCvsF.m GenTestVector.m |
27-April |
The inversion method; Selecting a vector with random orientation in 3D; Class Inheritance |
April_27.m TestClassA.m TestClassAB.m TestClassC.m TestClassACB.m |
29-April |
Correlation length and radial averaging |
April_29.m |
Reference Material
A reference text recommended by a student in our class: MATLAB for EngineersInstalling MATLAB
Create an account at mathworks.com using your UNM email address.Download and install MATLAB 2014b or later. We will not need or use most toolboxes. If you want to save download time and disk space, just install MATLAB and these toolboxes:
Statistics
Symbolic Math Toolbox
Others I find useful, but we will probably not use in class are:
Image Processing Toolbox
Optimization Toolbox
Parallel Computing Toolbox
Signal Processing Toolbox
At the point where it asks you to validate, you need to sign in with your mathworks account and provide an activation key. The key is given in the pdf linked to this page under the MATLAB section.
MATLAB Examples
Other
MATLAB documentationMIT OCW MATLAB course
Interview with Cleve Moler, creator of MATLAB
Numerical Recipes
http://www.cplusplus.com
http://www.cprogramming.com "