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Computer Science Classes Relevant to a Physicist

  1. Jun 27, 2012 #1

    KMcFadden

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    My plan is to major in Physics and to minor in Computer Science. Here are the classes required for a minor in Computer Science at the college I will be attending:

    http://www.unf.edu/catalog/link/MINORCCIS3/

    Here is a link for course descriptions: http://www.unf.edu/catalog/courses/ug/dept/6502/

    I'm required to take four classes of those listed at the bottom of the first link. What classes do you think will be most beneficial to someone seeking employment as a physicist (or some other physics related career)?
     
    KMcFadden, Jun 27, 2012
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  3. Jun 27, 2012 #2

    MathWarrior

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    COP 4300 Discrete Systems Modeling/Simulation - do physics simulations
    CNT 4504 (CEN4516) Networks & Distributed Processing - do physics simulations on many machines to speed things up
    CDA 4312/4312L Microprocessor Interfacing & Lab - in-case you end up building computer chips or just using them
    COT 3210 Computability/Automata - this has interesting uses in a variety of physics areas.
     
    MathWarrior, Jun 27, 2012
  4. Jun 27, 2012 #3

    KMcFadden

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    Thanks MathWarrior
     
    KMcFadden, Jun 27, 2012
  5. Jun 28, 2012 #4

    TMFKAN64

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    I'd agree with the first three, but I'd take COT4400: Analysis of Algorithms instead of the Computability/Automata course. I don't think COT 3210 is bad by any means, but you probably don't really need that much formal language theory. (As a physicist, you probably won't be called on to write many parsers, and you'll *never* have to determine if something is computable or not.) On the other hand, I think it would be valuable to take a course discussing general classes of algorithms and their efficiency (and limits to how efficient they can be).
     
    TMFKAN64, Jun 28, 2012
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