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Paperback Computational Physics Book

ISBN: 0521575885

ISBN13: 9780521575881

Computational Physics

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Format: Paperback

Condition: Very Good

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Book Overview

First published in 2007, this second edition describes the computational methods used in theoretical physics. New sections were added to cover finite element methods and lattice Boltzmann simulation,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

Customer Reviews

5 ratings

Great for beginners

This is a really good book for people starting out on computational modelling like me. I am currently doing a graduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering and this book has proven to be enormously useful.

A rare book deals with both computation and physics

I read several computational physics books before but never finished the second chapter. Most books on this subject expect the reader to become an expert after reading them, which is impossible! The authors themselves spent years to achieve their levels so they should have a practical expectation for the readers, especially undergraduates. I am not saying Thijssen's book is easy. It's far from the truth. I am only saying that Thijssen knows about the reader's difficulty when reading this book and doing its exercises! He not only explains the physics problem but also illustrates the technique to do the computation. Even though, this book is not for beginners, it's ideal for graduate students on experimental physics (students on theoretical physics need to know beyond this book). Also, it will save the read tons of time if he use Mathematica instead of C or Fortran for programming.

The best computational physics book available

This is a very decent book on computational physics, focusing primarily on condensed matter. It's up there with Allen and Tildesley's "Computer Simulation of Liquids", though with a broader selection of subjects and more suited to physicists. There are inevitable errors, some of which would take a bit of effort to fix were it not for the error web page the author maintains. Many problems in condensed matter are tackled, always with a view toward implementing an actual numerical investigation (this may sound like a given, but several other texts seem to shy away from actually using a computer, exploiting some variant of 'computational' in the title as an excuse to write yet another redundant physics text that is only cursorily computational). Often, nice snippets of pseudocode are presented, along with suggestions for numerical control parameters to use and the corresponding numerical results obtained - so one can try things out and check the answer. Indeed, the book is best used if one sets about to write code to solve problems, both in the main text and in the exercises at the chapter ends. As is often the case, however, getting a piece of new code to behave correctly can be a bit of a pain, which becomes easier only with experience. In a real sense, the text helps bring some physics to life, and one is rewarded, I think, with a clearer understanding, and some powerful tools at one's disposal. Though it doesn't have any real competitor, there is room for a second edition: along with correcting errors, several subjects could do with a bit more discussion or even extensive treatment, and other things could profitably be included, e.g., a DFT implementation of Car-Parrinello quantum atomic dynamics.

stepping stone to a serious research.

I found this book as thorough as I can think of without losing the depth. Probably, this book is not intended for anyone without a solid physics background. You need to have a solid senior level or beginning graduate school level physics to fully appreciate the content. If you are not that prepared, then read first "An Introduction to Computer Simulation Methods" by H. Gould and J. Tabochnik. I think that the price of the book is very reasonable now. It used to be 50$+ just a year ago. Cetainly, by NOT including the CD they could keep low the cost of production.

Finally, a good one!

This book by J. M. Thijssen is a rare gem. You note this as you browse the index. Quantum scattering, variational methods for the Schrödinger equation, the Hartree-Fock method, density functional theory, classical and quantum molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods and transfer matrix methods. Even a solid chapter on lattice field theory! The book isn't child's play (like most books on computational physics), but a beautifully written text covering both physical and computational issues, superficially but concisely. A neat selection of references guides readers to comprehensive, modern literature. The right balance of tricks and theory puts the readers few steps away from developing their own code. I don't award the fifth star because software engineering and object orientation issues are ignored.
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