COS 323 - Computing for the Physical and Social Sciences

Fall 2009

Use C, C++, or Java for the first three assignments, and Matlab for the last one.

There is no formal textbook for the course, but the Numerical Recipes series of books contains a good deal of information, code, and references on many of the algorithms we'll be discussing. The book is available at most bookstores, or there's an online version of the C (and Fortran, but not C++) books.

Date	Main Topic    ...    Supplementary Material	Assignments
Thu, Sep 17	Course mechanics, introduction to modeling
Tue, Sep 22	Simulation, population genetics    notes (epidemics)    notes (pop. genetics)
Thu, Sep 24	Using random numbers    notes (RNGs)    plotting    workshop/epidemiology
Tue, Sep 29	Interpreting results, descriptive statistics    notes (statistics)    notes (binomial)
Thu, Oct 1	Simulation: some examples
Tue, Oct 6	Integration*    notes (integ.)    notes (Simpson)    Black-Scholes73    symbolic computation    666	Assignment 1 due
Thu, Oct 8	Root finding, 1-d*    notes (root finding)    Press et al. example zoom zoom    N-R basins    lots of zeros
Tue, Oct 13	Optimization (1-d)*    notes (Optimization)
Thu, Oct 15	higher dimensions (con't)    animation (wikipedia)    examples: umich    IIR filters
Tue, Oct 20	Constrained optimization, linear programming    examples: diet$   portfolio$    FIR filters
con't	NP-completeness (sketch)    local search applications:    min-cost networks
con't	nat. gas pipelines    flowshop problem    gatech/proctor & gamble
Thu, Oct 22	ODEs, basics    notes (ODEs)    notes (ODEs)    ODEs in Matlab and Maple    ditto    H1N1 study
Tue, Oct 27	notes (accuracy and stability)	Assignment 2 due
Thu, Oct 29	Chaos    notes (chaos)    chaos    Phillips curve    Barry Adams site    CAs    sonification    nonlinear pendulum
Tue, Nov 3	No class - fall break
Thu, Nov 5	No class - fall break
Tue, Nov 10	PDEs    notes (PDEs)
Thu, Nov 12	PDEs cont., heat & wave eqns.    notes (PDEs)    more    Dan Russell   2 waves   string   membrane
Tue, Nov 17	Solitons¶    FPU 55    Dauxois08    Soliton computing: up to 2001   up to 2008   soliton collision
Thu, Nov 19	Sampling, DFT, FFT¶    notes (sampling, etc.)    sampling and aliasing*    Northern Cardinal
Tue, Nov 24	using the FFT¶    notes (using the FFT, etc.)    matlab intro§    Cardinal II	Assignment 3 due
Thu, Nov 26	No class - Thanksgiving break
Tue, Dec 1	more on using the FFT¶
Thu, Dec 3	Signal processing*    notes (2-D FFT and image processing)    two dies    Brayer/unm   goofy    jpg (Smith)
Tue, Dec 8	Local search¶    Solving linear systems*    examples    Great Lakes
Thu, Dec 10	Data modeling and least squares fitting*   more least squares*
Tue, Dec 15	More approaches to "intractable" problems¶    Linear systems: iterative and sparse methods*    Lord Kelvin¶    Japan	Assignment 4 due
Thu, Dec 17	Discussion of student term paper proposals	Project prop. due
Reading per.	Term paper presentations, click here for schedule	Presentation due
Tue, Jan 12	Dean's date	Project due

   * = Szymon Rusinkiewicz    $ = Robert Vanderbei    § = Sina Jafarpour    ¶ = new or in progress