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Programming & Linear Algebra
I am deeply grateful for all the help I received directing me towards the
math courses I should take in pursuing a career in Astro-physics. Since I can not take these courses now (sophomore HS), I've borrowed some trig & calculus books from the library and am setting aside some time each day to study on my own. I also have purchased Shu's "The Physical Universe" recommended by Mr. Thornburg. One (hopefully) last request: Which computer programming courses should I start with and then take in the future? Finally, finally: Can you recommend a good beginning text for Linear Algebra? Thanks very much again. bill |
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Programming & Linear Algebra
Thus spake west
Finally, finally: Can you recommend a good beginning text for Linear Algebra? Thanks very much again. Unfortunately I can't make a personal recommendation as it too long ago since I learned the subject. I had a look at a couple of books on amazon, and felt that Linear Algebra (Oxford Science Publications) (Paperback) by Richard Kaye, Robert Wilson seemed pretty good. The description says "In particular, this book would be suitable reading for a student with no prior exposure to abstract algebra. Although intended as a 'second course', the book is completely self-contained and all the material usually given in a 'first course' in presented fully in Part I,". You may also like to look at John Baez site. http://math.ucr.edu/home/ba ez/books.html Regards -- Charles Francis substitute charles for NotI to email |
#3
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Programming & Linear Algebra
west wrote:
I am deeply grateful for all the help I received directing me towards the math courses I should take in pursuing a career in Astro-physics. Since I can not take these courses now (sophomore HS), I've borrowed some trig & calculus books from the library and am setting aside some time each day to study on my own. That's great! If you can find a local math teacher who can help you over the inevitable rough spots, and correct any conceptual problems before they cause confusion, that would greatly ease your learning (and probably make it a lot more fun too!). I also have purchased Shu's "The Physical Universe" recommended by Mr. Thornburg. One (hopefully) last request: Which computer programming courses should I start with and then take in the future? Programming languages are tools, so it's useful to (eventually) learn several of them, both for easier sharing of code with colleagues, and so you can pick the most convenient one(s) for any given task. Learning your *first* programming language takes a moderate amount of work, because you need to learn a bunch of new concepts and ways of thinking ("variables", "loops", "arrays", "assignment statements", etc), simultaneously with the mechanics of how to express those in some programming language. I have seen cogent arguments for starting with a "scripting language" like Perl or Python, and also cogent arguments for starting with a more traditional programming language like C, C++, Java, or Fortran 90. This (choice of programming languages) is a rather controversial topic! In practice, your choice for your first language is likely to be set by your local environment, i.e. what courses are conveniently available to you. Once you know one programming language, learning another one is easy: you already know most of the concepts, so you'll just have to learn the mechanics of the new language. You'll also probably find that each new language you learn gives you a slightly new set of ways of *thinking* about programming problems. In my experience, most scientific computation is done on Unix-flavored systems (these days often running GNU/Linux), and the main programming languages are Unix shells/Perl/Python for "scripting and little things", and C, C++, and Fortran 90 for "big things". Learning at least one of {Perl, Python} and at least one of {C, C++, Fortran 90} would be great. Actually using a programming language to solve a scientific problem often gets into the domain of numerical analysis (very roughly speaking, numerical analysis is the branch of math/computing which marries calculus and computers). Any reasonable university physics/astronomy curriculum will have you taking a numerical analysis course (or two or three) fairly early on (soon after you learn calculus), so you probably don't need to do anything special right now. ciao, -- -- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut), Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam |
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Programming & Linear Algebra
"Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply"
schreef in bericht ... In my experience, most scientific computation is done on Unix-flavored systems (these days often running GNU/Linux), and the main programming languages are Unix shells/Perl/Python for "scripting and little things", and C, C++, and Fortran 90 for "big things". Learning at least one of {Perl, Python} and at least one of {C, C++, Fortran 90} would be great. Please do not forget Visual Basic (and or QBasic) as an alternative. Visit my homepage to get some idea. http://users.pandora.be/nicvroom/ Nicolaas Vroom [Mod. note: quoted text trimmed -- mjh] |
#5
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Programming & Linear Algebra
On Mon, 13 Nov 06 17:06:35 GMT, "Nicolaas Vroom"
wrote: "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" schreef in bericht ... In my experience, most scientific computation is done on Unix-flavored systems (these days often running GNU/Linux), and the main programming languages are Unix shells/Perl/Python for "scripting and little things", and C, C++, and Fortran 90 for "big things". Learning at least one of {Perl, Python} and at least one of {C, C++, Fortran 90} would be great. Please do not forget Visual Basic (and or QBasic) as an alternative. Visit my homepage to get some idea. http://users.pandora.be/nicvroom/ Nicolaas Vroom [Mod. note: quoted text trimmed -- mjh] I would second using quick basic 4.5 as a first language. It main uses is the fact you can read it. It is a complete language and can be learned quckly. It does run under windows machine and you can find it on the net. It is a starter that does not drive you nuts with syntax problems. Later you can pick-up a linux operatings system for you machine and there are basic languages availa blem ther while you learn c++ for super-jobs. Best of Luck |
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