Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] Fwd: Study on Computational Physics



Email responses to Fuller, please. Dan M
Dan MacIsaac, Associate Professor of Physics, SUNY-Buffalo State College
222SciBldg BSC, 1300 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo NY 14222 USA 716-878-3802
<macisadl@buffalostate.edu> <http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.edu>

Begin forwarded message:

From: Warren Hein <whein@AAPT.ORG>
Date: October 10, 2005 4:32:36 PM EDT (CA)
To: PHYSLRNR@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Study on Computational Physics
Reply-To: PHYSLRNR - PHYSICS LEARNING RESEARCH LIST
<PHYSLRNR@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Return-Path: <owner-physlrnr@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>


For Computing in Science and Engineering, the AIP magazine, we are
conducting a study of the roles of computation in undergraduate
physics curricula. We would like to invite you to come forward now
at the outset of this study and identify yourself if you are using
computation in your physics courses. Similarly, we would like to
learn from you of others who are doing so but who may not hear this
call. We will use this contact information to send you a brief
survey, and its results to create a database from which we will
draw a stratified sample of cases for further study.

The goal is a report on the landscape of computational practice and
a representative account of exemplary cases. This report will be
summarized at a special invited session of the AAPT Summer 2006
meeting in Syracuse, and a full account will be published in a
special theme issue of Computing in Science and Engineering. That
session will also contain other, related talks, including a sample
of accounts of what is being done in particular institutions
nationwide.

By computation in physics here we mean uses of computing that are
intimately connected with content and not its presentation. There
seems to be no concurrence on which role(s) are appropriate for
computing in physics, but there is a distinction we can draw
between computers used for instructional methodologies and
computers used for computational physics. We are interested in the
latter where, in analogy to calculus, computation is used to derive
the solutions to problems.

We hope that you will be forthcoming. We cannot pursue every case
in detail, but we can assure that every kind of voice will be
represented. We believe that physics education must come to grips
with the reality that computation is becoming an indispensable tool
in every scientific and engineer field, and that as a custodian of
scientific literacy, physics must respond to this reality.

We look forward to your participation in this study.

Norman Chonacky, CiSE Editor-in-Chief
David Winch, CiSE, Education Editor
Please send your email address and a brief description of your use
of computation in physics courses directly to:

Professor Emeritus Robert G. Fuller
Physics Department
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0111
rfuller@neb.rr.com