AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
Problem solving in Physics 2011

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HAVE YOU ASKED (YOURSELF) A GOOD QUESTION TODAY: What is the shortest distance between point A = (0,10) and point B=(0,0) if one must go via an intermediate point P with lies on the line y = 2x - 5. This is a problem of optimisatioin under constraints, and can be done nicely with Lagrange multipliers.

Problem Solving in Physics is a skills course in the 2011 AIMS programme. It consists of around 20 lectures, and about 10 tutorial/computational classes, given by

• Professor David Aschman of the Physics Department at the University of Cape Town
• A/Prof Roger Fearick of the Physics Department at the University of Cape Town

• Lecture notes (slides):
  • David Aschman
    • psp1101
    • psp1102
    • ..
  • Roger Fearick
    • Roger Fearick Lecture slides 1 (2011)
    • ...
• ..
• Problem sets:
  • pspp1101
  • pspp1102
  • pspp1103 (dga-03)
  • pspp1104 (dga-04). This problem is optional.
• Some Python code
  • ..
• ..
• Interesting material from the web
  • Lagrange multipliers - nice set of notes from Arkansas Technical University
  • Sanjoy Mahajan homepage
  • David Mackay webpage at Cambridge
  • ..
  • Semi-popular physics journals: Physics Today | Physics World | Cern Courier | SLAC Beamline | Symmetry magazine| Scientific American | Physical Review Focus | What is new? | Computing in Science and Engineering | Physics News Update | Reviews of Modern Physics | Nature | New Scientist | American Scientist | Science...
  • Worthwhile sites: Bob Park weekly comment on science matters | the edge