1. Limited time only! Sign up for a free 30min personal tutor trial with Chegg Tutors
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
Join Physics Forums Today!
The friendliest, high quality science and math community on the planet! Everyone who loves science is here!

Computer Science Classes Relevant to a Physicist

  1. Jun 27, 2012 #1

    KMcFadden

    User Avatar

    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
  2. jcsd
    Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories on Phys.org
  3. Jun 27, 2012 #2

    MathWarrior

    User Avatar

    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

    User Avatar

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

    TMFKAN64

    User Avatar

    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
Share this great discussion with others via Reddit, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook