Physics and Astronomy Undergraduate Program
Topics for Discussion:
•Status of Plans for Bachelor of Arts in Physics
• Computing for AST and PHY majors: PHY277
• Requirements for Declaration of PHY Major
• Seniors’ Study Group
9/24/04
Seniors’ Study Group for GRE preparation
—
volunteer faculty needed
areas:
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Mechanics (2)
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Electromagnetism and Optics
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Atomic Physics
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Thermal Physics
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Quantum Physics
— just once, during Campus Life, from now to midNovember
Requirements for Declaration of PHYSICS Major
Current situation
• We sign on anyone who walks in and declares
Physics as his/her major, regardless of interests
or history of courses taken.
• We have 114 PHY majors but we graduate around 15
• Prospective engineering majors keep coming in to be signed on
To sign on students whose interests are elsewhere,
Does it benefit the Physics and Astronomy Department?
Is it right?
Proposal
Require that a student has completed the
Introductory Physics sequence (PHY 13x or equivalent)
with a grade of C or higher before he/she is accepted
into the PHYSICS Major program.
Status of Plans for Bachelor of Arts in Physics
Last year’s discussions crystallized in concrete proposal
This year’s discussion has questioned advantages of
instituting a B.A. in Physics:
• Prospective clientele is not clear
• It is doubtful that it’ll attract more students
• It may reduce the number of B. S. Physics majors who
take the B.S. track
• It may require the introduction of new courses, which is
not a good “economics” decision
• It is not clear how much other institutions have
benefited from a B.A. program
Proposal: Take a closer look one more time to more
institutions, before settling issue definitively
Physics and Computation for Undergraduates
What are we doing?
AST/PHY 277: Intro. to Unix/Program./Num. Analysis
1-credit, elective course
What is the outside world doing?
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Some schools have comparable courses, but at higher level:
– Rutgers, “Intro. to computer-based experimentation and physics computing” (4)
– Utah, “Intro. to Computing in Physics” (4)
– Oregon State, “Introductory Scientific Computing” (3)
– U. of Virginia, “Fundamentals of Scientific Computing”, (3)
– U. Arizona, “Computational Physics” (3)
– Notre Dame, “Scientific Programming” (3)
– UC Irvine, “Intro. to C & Numerical Analysis” (3)
– Case Western, “Computational Methods in Physics” (3)
– Washington, “Introduction to Computational Physics” (3)
Other schools have computer science course requirements (Introductory programming in
Fortran, C, or C++) at the 3 credit level
Still other schools have upper division computational physics courses that had
programming prerequisites
AST 277/PHY 277
In 1-credit course we teach:
In 3-credit course we could add:
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Introduction to Unix
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– basic file manipulation commands
– editing files
– working remotely
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Introduction to Fortran 90
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integer & floating point arithmetic
real & integer variables and expressions
basic conditional & loop structures
static arrays
basics of subprograms
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Trapezoidal rule integration
Basic least-squares fit
Newton-Raphson iteration
Euler's method for ODEs
more extensive tour of Unix
graphics & visualization applications
makefiles
LaTeX
HTML
IDL/Mathematica/Maple/Matlab
symbolic manipulation
Programming
– Complex variables & strings
– Formatted I/O
– allocatable arrays & dynamic memory
allocation
– All of F90 & procedural parts of C++
– pointers in F90, C, C++
Rudimentary numerical techniques
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Computer literacy
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Numerical Methods
– Greater detail of numerical integration,
root-finding, ODE methods
– Intro to Monte-Carlo methods
The undergraduate curriculum committee proposes:
1. Make PHY277 a requirement for PHY major
(it already is for AST)
2. Expand AST/PHY277 syllabus and make it a 3-credit course
3. Encourage students to take AST/PHY277 in Sophomore year
4. Encourage upper-division instructors to include numerical
problems in their assignments