Courses: Which one to choose for CMP?

[Niles]

Hi all.

I have to make a decision in ~1 month, whether I want a course in "Analytical Mechanics", "Introduction to Nuclear- and Particle Physics" and "Programming for Physicists".

The thing is, I wish to work in condensed matter physics (whether that may be computional, theoretical or experimental), which is why I have already ruled out "Introduction to Nuclaer- and Particle Physics".

This leaves the last two. Which ones do you think will benefit me most in the long run?


Niles.

 

[Monocles]

Analytical mechanics is very fundamental and important. Programming for physicists is probably a numerical methods class. Numerical methods are very important, but for the most part they're easy to learn ideas that can be self-taught and then implemented quickly. You'll need to learn both at some point, but since analytical mechanics is more fundamental I'd say to go for that.

 

[Niles]

Well, the thing is that I will also be following a course in CMP, and apparently the lectures of the CMP-course and Analytical Mechanics-course will be in the same days and same hours - so I have to choose which lectures I should go to! (This is not the case with the Computational-course)

And based on this, the Analytical Mechanics course will be self-studied in some way. This is why I thought last night that perhaps I should self-study Analytical-Mechanics, and take the Computational-course.

But do you think this is possible (i.e. possible to self-study Analytical Mechanics)?