Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2019
Volume 64, Number 2
Monday–Friday, March 4–8, 2019; Boston, Massachusetts
Session F22: Education and Modern ComputationInvited
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Sponsoring Units: DCOMP Chair: Rubin Landau, Oregon State University Room: BCEC 157C |
Tuesday, March 5, 2019 11:15AM - 11:51AM |
F22.00001: The Practical and Theoretical Future of Computation in Physics Invited Speaker: Stephen Wolfram I started using computers for physics around 1972, and for the past 30+ years I've been building things like Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha that have been used to do a lot of physics. Around 1980 realized that computation can be used not only for the practical doing of physics, but also as a framework for thinking about physics. Among other things that led to my book A New Kind of Science, and by now many new models in many fields (including physics) are getting made in terms of programs rather than traditional mathematical constructs. |
Tuesday, March 5, 2019 11:51AM - 12:27PM |
F22.00002: Computational Problems for Physics Courses Throughout the Curriculum Invited Speaker: Rubin Landau Physics courses too often include computation to illustrate |
Tuesday, March 5, 2019 12:27PM - 1:03PM |
F22.00003: Hitting the ground running: Computational physics education that prepares students for research Invited Speaker: Amy Graves
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Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:03PM - 1:39PM |
F22.00004: Probing quantum mechanical energy on a local scale Invited Speaker: Nithaya Chetty We explore the usefulness of using quantum mechanical energy densities, and investigate the computation of physically meaningful results despite the non-uniqueness of these quantities. In the case of the kinetic energy density, we define two different forms, the one form involving the -hbar2/2m phi(x) del2 phi(x), and the other involving +hbar2/2m |phi(x)|2. Since the difference of these two approaches includes a boundary term, we specifically explore the kinetic energy current densities at the boundaries and demonstrate why the first form gives physically more meaningful results than the second form. |
Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:39PM - 2:15PM |
F22.00005: Developing the educational value of visualizations in physics Invited Speaker: Joan Adler Many interesting physical phenomena occur at length scales that cannot be accessed with the naked eye. Some, especially those related to atoms and molecules, are too small. Astrophysical scales can be too large. Modern computations leading to computer visualizations enable access across all length scales. These types of calculations require a large amount of computer resources to carry out the basic computations with sufficient detail and elapsed time. One must think how to maximise the learning experience while minimising the student's technical effort. (Not to speak of minimizing the teachers' preparation effort so they can concentrate on pedagogy rather than developing theirs and their students' computer techniques.) If 3D material is simply presented as flat images its impact is curtailed. Thus interactivity, three dimensional images (stereo where possible) and some carefully curated student activity are needed. I will describe material prepared at the Technion that aids comprehension for not-too-great student effort, but at the same time allows for some ``hands-on'' interaction. Two approaches we use are: smoke visualization for electronic density of wavefunctions and fluid flow (3D, stereo) and WebGL for rotatable, zoomable images of lattices amd molecules. The former require substanial running time and RAM memory to provide the raw data. All of the final visualizations are website based and accessible also on cellphones. The former have an analglyphic stereo option, the latter can be used with Oculus viewers. |
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