Wired Argues You Should Be Coding in Your Physics Class

CodingAccording to Wired Magazine, if coding isn’t part of your Physics course, something is wrong. Rhett Allain of Wired explores this in a recent article titled “You Should Be Coding in Your Physics Course.”

Allain writes, “IT’S NEAR THE start of a new semester of physics. Many faculty are working on their plans for introductory physics courses. How many tests should there be? What about homework? Do I want to cover fluids? What about numerical calculations? Let’s talk about the numerical calculations. Sadly, I think the majority of physics faculty don’t even consider to include numerical calculations in their physics courses. Of course, by numerical calculations I mean the process of breaking a complicated problem into many smaller (and easier) problems. Since this makes many problems to solve, the simplest strategy is to use some type of computer. Thus some people might call this computational physics or even physics coding. Call it what you like, but I think it’s an important topic to cover in introductory classes. What are some of the reasons faculty don’t include numerical calculations? Here are some common concerns for faculty along with my reply. ‘This is not a computer science class.’ Well, that’s true. This is a physics courses. However, this is also not an English class. Does that mean that there should be no writing or reading? It’s not a math class, but students should still use math. It’s not an art class, but students should still be able to draw force diagrams. Physics is not ONE THING in isolation from all other things. Really, there are no classes that could just stand by themselves. Could you imagine any course that didn’t use words and instead only had pictures? No, that would be difficult. Physics has to use many different fields to study the nature of the universe. That’s what makes it so awesome. Of course it’s not just faculty that say ‘this isn’t a computer class’—students think this too. Here is my response to them.”

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