A First Course in Computational Physics

The rapid advancement of computational physics has left a gap in the available literature adequately covering this important subject. This book fills that need. It demonstrates how numerical methods are used to solve the problems that physicists face. Chapters discuss different types of computational problems, with exercises developed around problems of physical interest. Within each chapter, students are lead from discussions of elementary problems and simple numerical approaches through derivations of more complex and sophisticated methods. Includes non-standard material such as Monte Carlo Methods, orthogonal polynomials and computerized tomography, and uses FORTRAN as the programming language