Physics 210: Intro Computational Physics: Course News

1. As some of you have already heard, I will be in my office over the weekend for at least part of the day, both days.  As I have also told some of you, I have another commitment that, unfortunately, must take precedence over everything else during this time.  That said, I should be able, from time to time, lend some assistance in cases where you are really stuck and could use some help.  I trust, however, you will understand if I have to minimize the length of time that we interact (including e-mails).  Additionally, if you are on campus, and would like to get into Hennings to use the computer lab, you can try phoning me at my office (604)-822-2412, and assuming that I'm in, I'll be happy to come down and let you in via the east-door.
   
   
2. I realize that for many of you, the difference between having to present on Tuesday vs Thursday is significant in terms of how complete your project will be.  I will take this into account when evaluating the presentation portion of your project.  In other words, don't panic/despair etc. etc. should your project not be as finished as you would like it to be when you present.
   
   
3. IMPORTANT!  Those of you who intend to inlcude animations in your presentations will need to take special care to ensure that all of the files needed for your talk get to me in a timely fashion, and in a form that I can handle.
   
   So, for those of you who will be showing one or more animations, please note and abide by the following
   
   
1. I have created the directory /phys210/$(LOGNAME)/tp-pres on hyper for all students
   
   
2. When you have finished preparing your presentation, upload ALL of the files that are needed (i.e. the .ppt or .pptx itself, as well as any animation files) to that directory on hyper. If you don't know how to do this from your Windows system, now is the time to install putty on your machine (see the course Software page), and learn how to use scp from the command prompt window.
   
   
3. Once that is done, send me an e-mail message so that I can retrieve your files, install them on my laptop, and ensure that everything is in working order.
   
   
4. It is particularly important in this case that you bring a copy of your presentation on a USB stick, and, if possible that you show up in the lab early (I suggest no later than 1:40 PM) so that we can deal with any glitches that may arise. If you don't have a USB stick, now is a good time to get one!
   

1. The dates and speaking order for your final term project presentations, along with brief guidelines and instructions are available HERE. Please e-mail me if you detect any mistakes in the speaking order etc. Please refer to the News item from Friday Nov 20, for additional information concerning the deadlines for the final report, as well as details concerning precisely what must be submitted for your term project to be considered complete. 
   
   
2. From now until the end of classes (i.e. Friday Dec 4), I will be in the office most of the day, all days, and you are welcome to drop in to get help with  your term projects.  You can also continue to send me e-mails as well, but it is generally more efficient and effective to discuss these things in person, so I would prefer that we adopt that approach if at all possible.
   
   
3. I've updated the course Software page with a few additional details re the installation of the visualization utilities I demoed in yesterday's lab. Again, feel free to contact me should you need any help installing something on your personal machines.
   

• xfpp3d (useful to those doing N-body work, including charges on a sphere, Toomre problem, etc.)
• xflat2d and xflat2d_rgb (useful to those doing cellular automata calculations)
• xvs (advanced!) (useful to those solving PDEs in one space and one time dimension)
• DV (advanced!) (useful to those solving PDEs in more than one space dimension, as well as N-body problems with N very large)

As announced in yesterday's class, the lecture component of 210 is now concluded. Thus, next week do not go to Buchanan at 2:00 PM, but instead head directly to the computer lab where you can devote your full attention to your term projects.

Unless you feel very confident that you have your project under control, and that you do not require any assistance in order to complete it in a timely fashion, I urge you to take full advantage of the six scheduled hours we will have in the lab next week to get help as necessary with this crucial component of the course.

Over the weekend, I will put information online about the available visualization utilities that I have mentioned previously, as well as some guidelines for those of you who wish to install one or more of them on your own machines. You will also be able to get help using these utilities during the lab sessions.

TERM PROJECT DETAILS

PRESENTATIONS

• Recall that the presentation order will be precisely the reverse of that used for the proposal presentations: i.e. we will start/finish with Henry/Sen on Tue Dec 1 and with Andy/Masoud on Thu Dec 3.


• I would ask that there be no swapping of speaking order, as was allowed previously, unless it is absolutely necessary (e.g. you are ill)

• Your presentations can be largely modelled on what you previously prepared for the Oct sessions. Thus referring to the instructions available HERE, simply replace
  • Project Timeline

  with
  • Results
  • Conclusions

  The first 5 items in the outline can remain as is.

  Note, however, that you do not have to adhere to the suggested structure in slavish detail: if you wish to organize your presentation in some other manner that you feel more appropriate, you are free to do so.
  

• We will need to keep to the 10 minutes total-time-per-talk schedule as closely as possible, so plan for a 7 minute presentation leaving 3 minutes for questions and a transition to the next speaker. Be sure that you PRACTICE. giving your talk, and time it to ensure that you CAN deliver it in the allotted time.


• All presentations must be e-mailed to me, as an attachment, no later that 10:00 AM on the day that you are presenting. As was the case for your proposal presentation you should also ensure that a copy of your final presentation is available via your web page, and that, if possible, you come to the session with a copy on a USB stick.

• Keep in mind that the final presentation is worth a maximum of 5% of the course grade.

WRITEUPS

• Guidelines for your writeups are given on the main course page (scroll down to the "Term Projects" section). You will observe that I suggest a length of 10-20 pages, double spaced, including title page, figures and graphs, and references. 10 pages should be treated as the bare minimum, since 10 pages of double spaced copy with headings etc. won't allow you to describe very much. Conversely, you will NOT be penalized should your writeup exceed 20 pages!


• I would ask that any of you who are interested in using LaTeX for their writeup, and who need some pointers as to how to go about doing that, contact me directly---if there is no demand, then I won't bother supplying the information.


• I do NOT normally return project writeups. Once the term is done, you are welcome to ask me for feedback on the project, and if you want such feedback, I will ask that we meet in person for that purpose.

SOURCE CODE

• IMPORTANT! The writeup is by no means the only thing that I will be using in evaluating your project; i.e. in deciding how much of the available 35% of the course grade you receive for your effort.
• You will all be writing code for your projects, and this code MUST be available to me on hyper, and MUST execute correctly (i.e. as you intend it to!) on that machine.
• In particular, I have created the directory /phys210/$LOGNAME/tp for each of you on hyper. As part of your final submission, this directory must contain the following
  1. All of the source code that you wrote for your project.
  2. Any additional code or packages that you did not personally write, but which is needed for your code to execute.
  3. IMPORTANT! A README file that gives brief but complete instructions that will enable me to run your code for a typical case that was used to generate results described in your write up.

• Your tp directory may also contain other files, such as data files, plots etc.

DEADLINES

• The official and highly recommended deadline for submission of your final project, which includes
  1. An electronic version of your writeup, e-mailed to me,
  2. All of your source code for your project, installed and operational in /phys210/$LOGNAME/tp as described above,

  is Friday Dec 4, 11:59 PM.

• If you will not be able to make that deadline, you must inform me via e-mail of that fact as soon as possible, and request an extension.

• Submissions after Wednesday Dec 9, 11:59 will NOT be accepted, barring sickness or an equivalent official excuse. I will leaving be Vancouver Saturday Dec 12, will have to have submitted final grades for the course by that time, and need at least two days to evaluate late projects and get the grades in.
• Depending on the circumstances, late projects may result in a grade penalty.

Let me know immediately if you have any questions or concerns about the above information/instructions.

  /home/phys210/octave/pendulume.m
  /home/phys210/octave/tpe.m

   % This code is based in part on foo.m written by M.W. Choptuik

% calc 'sin(0.2)^3' 30
.784137974753707229432310892408e-2

% calc 'exp(3.2*cos(0.6))/5!' 50
.11690217850242085009432241803609746795583660538774

1. As I've mentioned in a previous e-mail message (Sep 19), although the Hennings building is locked on weekends (including this Monday), and weekdays from about 6 PM through 7 AM, the computer lab is open 24/7, so if you can get into the building, you should be able to get into the lab. In that regard, please note that I will be in my office over the weekend as follows
   
   
   1. Today:  Until 5 PM at least
   2. Tomorrow:  From about 10 AM until about 2 PM
      
   3. Monday:  From about 10 AM until about 5 PM
      
      
   so, provided that you can give me a bit of advanced notice via e-mail (best to get an e-mail confirmation from me), if you want to get into the building during the above hours, you can call my office (604-822-2412), either using your cell, assuming you have one, or from the public phones in SUB, and I'll be happy to come down and let you in.
   
   
2. The due date for the second homework has been revised to Wednesday October 14, 11:59 PM. This will give you a chance to get additional help during next Tuesday's lab, and also reflects that fact that due to midterms, you have more than the usual load of work to do! The online version of the homework (available HERE) has been revised to reflect this change.
   
   
3. I'm pleased to report that the number of e-mail messages that I have received about term projects is now a small positive integer, so keep those messages coming!!
   
   
4. The presentation order for your term projects (randomly generated, as promised) is now available HERE.  That page also gives the instructions/rules concerning how your proposal presentations are to be prepared and sent to me, so be sure to let me know immediately should you have any questions about the procedure.
   
   If you wish to try to swap your spot in the schedule with a fellow student, you are free to do so, provided that both parties agree to the swap.  This also applies to sets of more than 2 students: e.g. 3 of you can rearrange your times, provided there is mutual consent among all 3 of you, etc.  Please inform me via e-mail of any such swaps, and it would be best if I get e-mail from all involved parties to reassure me that nothing fishy is going on!
   
   Recall that the order for the final presentations (December 1 and 3), will be the exact opposite order of that for the proposal presentations.
   

• Full details concerning today's lab activities are available via the Syllabus section of the main Course Page, or directly HERE.
• For the plotting examples that we covered in the lab, the actual worksheet as well as a printout of the worksheet in PDF form are available in the Lecture 4 section of the Maple Notes page HERE.
• All of the procedures (fully commented), with script files that put them through their paces, and a README describing how to use the procedures/script files are available in the world-readable directory ~phys210/maplepgm on hyper.
  
  Note that among the procedure files is pwrsfilein, which in today's lab notes was left as an exercise for the interested, and which iilustrates how data from a text file can be input into Maple using the fscanf command.  There is also an associated driver/testing script file, tpwrsfilein, which should be read into Maple after the file output has been created by tpwrsfile.