Update September 6

Dear All, 

here comes the weekly summary with plans for this week and partly next week as well. 

First of all, in order to aid you in getting started with C++, we have started now to compile a website simply called 

Teach yourself C++, you will find it at  http://compphysics.github.io/ComputationalPhysics/doc/pub/learningcpp/html/learningcpp-bs.html 

or scrolling down the web display of the course content at http://compphysics.github.io/ComputationalPhysics/doc/web/course

We will keep updating this site with more and more C++ practicalities. There are links to the full programs and what we have till now is more or less a summary of what has been discussed (with additional text) during the lectures the first two weeks and at the lab. This link contains many practicalities which are seldom mentioned in textbooks. If you spot unclear topics, errors or links that don't function, don't hesitate to let us know and we will correct it asap. 

I have also corrected a stupid minus sign typo (thanks to Karl and Giovanni)  for the algorithm (the special case) of project 1. You will find the algorithm in for example the linear algebra slides http://compphysics.github.io/ComputationalPhysics/doc/pub/linalg/html/linalg-reveal.html, see slides 35-47 for details. 

Last week we ended with a derivation of the Thomas algorithm using Gaussian elimination. We will start there this week and discuss further aspects of the algorithm as well as details of LU decomposition, how to obtain an inverse of matrix, getting the determinant and the details behind LU decomposition.

Of a more technical character we will discuss how to represent matrices using C++, the standard way and how to simplify everything using the library armadillo. All this material can be found in the above slides and the lecture notes, chapters 6.1-6.5. If we get time, we will also show how to set up interpolation algorithms using cubic splines (based on the code from project 1).

At the lab we will discuss how to write a report for the projects, see details at for example http://compphysics.github.io/ComputationalPhysics/doc/pub/projectwriting/html/projectwriting-reveal.html  and we will also show to use merge and collaboration tools in git. This will take approximately 45 mins of each lab session. 

I have also made some updates to project 1 (clarifying some text). The deadline (soft) is next Wednesday (we moved it from Monday to Wednesday). 

Next week we will begin with eigenvalue problems and start discussing project 2. 

Best wishes to you all,

Morten^2, H?kon, Vilde and Giovanni