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1、COMPUTATIONALPHYSICSM.Hjorth-JensenDepartmentofPhysics,UniversityofOslo,2003iiiPrefaceIn1999,whenwestartedteachingthiscourseattheDepartmentofPhysicsinOslo,Compu-tationalPhysicsandComputationalScienceingeneralwerestillperceivedbythemajorityofphysicistsandscientistsastopi
2、csdealingwithjustmeretoolsandnumbercrunching,andnotassubjectsoftheirown.ThecomputationalbackgroundofmoststudentsenlistingforthecourseoncomputationalphysicscouldspanfromdedicatedhackersandcomputerfreakstopeoplewhobasicallyhadneverusedaPC.Themajorityofgraduatestudentshada
3、veryrudimentaryknowl-edgeofcomputationaltechniquesandmethods.Fouryearslatermoststudentshavehadafairlyuniformintroductiontocomputers,basicprogrammingskillsanduseofnumericalexercisesinundergraduatecourses.PracticallyeveryundergraduatestudentinphysicshasnowmadeaMat-laborMa
4、plesimulationofe.g.,thependulum,withorwithoutchaoticmotion.Theseexercisesunderscoretheimportanceofsimulationsasameanstogainnovelinsightsintophysicalsys-tems,especiallyforthosecaseswherenoanalyticalsolutionscanbefoundoranexperimentistocomplicatedorexpensivetocarryout.Thu
5、s,computersimulationsarenowadaysaninte-gralpartofcontemporarybasicandappliedresearchinthephysicalsciences.Computationisbecomingasimportantastheoryandexperiment.Wecouldevenstrengthenthisstatementbysayingthatcomputationalphysics,theoreticalphysicsandexperimentalareallequa
6、llyimportantinourdailyresearchandstudiesofphysicalsystems.Physicsisnowadaystheunityoftheory,experimentandcomputation.Theability"tocompute"isnowpartoftheessentialrepertoireofresearchscientists.Severalnewfieldshaveemergedandstrengthenedtheirpositionsinthelastyears,suchasco
7、mputationalmaterialsscience,bioinformatics,computationalmathematicsandmechanics,computationalchemistryandphysicsandsoforth,justtomentionafew.Tobeabletoe.g.,simulatequantalsystemswillbeofgreatimportanceforfuturedirectionsinfieldslikematerialsscienceandnanotechonology.This
8、abilitycombinesknowledgefrommanydifferentsubjects,inourcaseessentiallyfromthephysicalsciences,numericalanalysi