Computational Physics Article Index for
Computational
Website Links For
Computational
 

Information About

Computational Physics




Physicist s often have a very precise mathematical theory describing how a system will behave. Unfortunately, it is often the case that solving the theory's equations ab-initio in order to produce a useful prediction is not realistic. This is especially true with Quantum Mechanics , where only a handful of simple models can be solved exactly. This is where the computational physicist steps in.


APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS


Computational methods are widely used in Solid State Physics , Fluid Mechanics and Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics among other areas. Computational physics borrows a number of ideas from Computational Chemistry - for example, the Density Functional Theory used by computational physicists to calculate properties of solids is basically the same as that used by chemists to calculate the properties of molecules.

Many other more general numerical problems fall loosely under the domain of computational physics, although they could easily be considered pure Mathematics or part of any number of applied areas. For example:



SEE ALSO




EXTERNAL LINKS

  • Computational Physics argues that this area of research should be regarded as different both from theoretical and from experimental physics.