Starting a computational physics journey
After many years as a software engineer, I’m returning to physics. Not because my career requires it—though I hope it will benefit—but because I want to understand how the world works, and I love being able to compute things. It’s one way to bring the theory alive.
In this blog I’ll write about what I learn. The format is simple: study the physics, implement it computationally, write about both. The writing encourages clarity. The code allows me to test my understanding. More importantly, it allows me to play with the physics. Along the way, I hope it does something to convey the beauty we find in the universe.
The plan
I’ve started working through some well-known physics texts. I’ve cracked open John R. Taylor’s Classical Mechanics. After that I hope to work through Purcell and Morin for electromagnetism, Schroeder for thermal physics, and so on. As I write code I’ll also dive into mathematics and numerical methods, but not by going through a text systematically. I’ll dive into the topics that I need, when I need them.
I’ll be designing computational projects as I work through the texts. Of course, Classical Mechanics leads to all kinds of interesting things like n-body simulations, orbital mechanics, and chaos. We’ll be solving the wave equation numerically. Statistical mechanics leads to Monte Carlo methods. Quantum mechanics leads to solving the Schrödinger equation.
Join me
I hope you join me in these explorations, and together we can explore some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring things that humans have been able to understand about the universe.
More soon.