I'm wrapping up my physics undergrad. I took a liking towards statistical mechanics and thermodynamics early on and now at 23 I had to go and pick a thesis project, so I did.Long story short, I've never been good at programming, nor had I ever been interested in it but I had to come up with a bit of code to "solve" a really nasty system of coupled partial differential equations, something I've never been shown how to actually do in any of my classes yet most non experimental physicists do day after day. I get the whole argument that a code may help give insights into the guts of what's really happening but I see this as more of a crutch than anything else.I feel like simulations have very little to contribute in the creative aspects of sound reasoning and new models. Sure, they help you visualize a process, sure, some may help engineers make things that won't break by allowing them to look at the finer details, free from analytical approximations, but I've rarely heard of a computer simulation bridging a gap in easly applicable theorization the way only human intuition can.The main results from my thesis come from analytical methods (anything from optimization theory to dynamical system theory)to solve the system of equations after diluting its difficulty with opportunistic approximations. The code seems to be there just because it's neat, not because I can get anything intelligible from it, generally speaking.Is it always the same with computational physics?
Yes
>>16383779>The code seems to be there just because it's neat, not because I can get anything intelligible from it, generally speaking.Is it always the same with computational physics?No
>>16383779You can prove that most differential equations don't have algebraic solutions. At a certain point, is it even helpful to keep defining new functions to solve each differential equation?I would be willing to throw out analytical methods if you could find a general closed form solution for QCD interactions.
>>16383797Can you give me some examples? I have friends who work in numerical relativity and the most applicable things they can get are radii of convergence for different things. The stuff I'm working on is in mathematical biology so it's not easy to tell which quantities have valuable significance.
Undergraduates struggles are so funny
>>16383800NTA but VASP will directly give you the ground state energy and vibrational modes for a given atomic structure.
>>16383807Are they funny? I completed an undergrad and the struggles of high schoolers or middle schoolers aren't funny to me, I take them seriously. Why do you find undergrad struggles funny? Do you find middle schooler struggles funny?
>>16383800Maybe I am misunderstanding your question, but the value of a numerical solution to a "really nasty system of coupled partial differential equations" seems self-evident, even if your goal is to simply come up with some sort of simplified analytically solvable toy model. I think the onus is more on you to explain why it is not useful.
>>16383808Solid-state physics labs pretty much universally have at least one theorist to run DFT calcs. It’s an essential part of the field that’s otherwise just guessing about the existence of materials.
>>16383779It's not that hard, use google. Yes, you must cooooooode to be a physicist. It's extremely useful even if you don't do it much. Even if you're the world's most hardcore mathematical physicist, some code is extremely useful to test conjectures, try out examples, produce figures etc. Most types of physicists code at least weekly if not daily, unless they are totally subservient lab monkeys.
>>163837791. Being able to code is extremely useful.2. As a physics undergrad you must figure that shit out.3. Yes, it is a litmus test for retards.
>>16383779If you’re a theorist, you’ll constantly run into problems that can’t be solved analytically. So you need to simulate things.If you’re an experimentalist, you’ll constantly have data acquisition and analysis you’ll want to automate.Both of these require coding.
>>16383809undergrad reply
>>16383779>I've never been good at programmingBetter git gud then because it's a pretty essential skill for anyone studying or working in any STEM field nowadays.
