Computer knowledge for theoretical phyics

[Bradwast88]

Hello!
I am going to do bachelors in theoretical physics in next year,so I want to know what kind of computer knowledge needs for theoretical physics (I mean even fast typing programming)

Thanks Have a nice day and happy x'mas!

 

[fluidistic]

You don't necessarily have to know some computer knowledge before starting your degree. You'll likely have some programming course in your course-load. But if you have some time to learn a programming language, it will probably help you (not sure about how much) for your degree. Do you have a description of the courses you'll be taking? So that you could learn the programming language(s) you'll face in your degree.

 

[twofish-quant]

Hello!
I am going to do bachelors in theoretical physics in next year,so I want to know what kind of computer knowledge needs for theoretical physics (I mean even fast typing programming)

Thanks Have a nice day and happy x'mas!

It depends on the type of theoretical physics, but there are some hairy numerical algorithms that require quite a bit of computer knowledge. The good news is that you can pick most of that up on the job, as long as you know the basics. The closest analogy that I can think of is that computer languages are like any other language. When you get off the plane in a foreign country, you probably won't be able to write novels, but the important thing is to know enough so that you can start stumble your way around. The most important thing to start out with is to be familar with the basics, and to be able to *read* computer code, so that when someone hands you a system, you don't immediately draw a blank.

 

[mgb_phys]

Unless you are doing simultions/modeliing - you are most likely to be using something like Mathematica than Fortran or C++.
If you know the maths the syntax details of Mathematica or Matlab or Maple are trivial