# Need an idea for a computational physics project

#### xbomber88

I need an idea for a final project for my computational physics course. The problem is that I've only had intro mechanics and intro E&M courses so far and I'm currently taking modern physics. It seems like any interesting projects would require more physics than I've had so far. I was thinking of using a genetic algorithm to design an antenna but then I discovered that antennas are actually a lot more complicated than I had imagined. So now I'm back to square one and need to come up with something quickly because I'm running out of time. Can anyone think of some ideas for an interesting project that someone with my background in physics could do?

#### Monocles

You could computationally calculate the electric field of an "ugly" charge configuration with no standard symmetries.

#### maverick_starstrider

I remember in my computational physics course i wrote a simple code to calculate Rayleigh scattering (it does indeed work). I also wrote a polynomial curve fitting program that used Monte Carlo to determine the coefficients of best fit. You could also do a simple illustration of diffusion by using finite element techniques (i.e. discretize the equations of motion) of a bunch of particles and start them in a far corner of an empty box and see how they evenly disperse themselves. I could think of quite a few more if these are the kind of things you were considering (my undergrad degree was actually in Computational Physics so I've done a lot of these sort of projects).