>
> From: David Joiner <djoiner@kean.edu>
> Date: June 16, 2008 3:39:16 PM EDT
> To: "'R. M. Panoff, Ph.D.'" <rpanoff@shodor.org>
> Subject: RE: reviews for "A Survey of Computational Physics"? ? ?
>
> Review of "A Survey of Computational Physics: introductory computational
> science" by Landau, Paez, and Bordeianu.
>
>
> The organization of the book into chapters which typically address either
> the computational paradigm or the problem being solved gives a lot of
> flexibility in the use of this book.
>
> As a survey of computational physics, this is very complete.
>
> I could see this also being used to teach an overview physics course where
> chapters 11-13 and 15-20 address the bulk of standard computing problems in
> modern physics and fluids, with other chapters assigned as needed. I
> particularly like the chapters on fluid dynamics, content that is often not
> fully explored in the undergraduate (or graduate) physics curriculum.
>
> Even if this were to be used as a survey of general computational science,
> very little would need to be added to include techniques typically used in
> bioinformatics and computational chemistry. I really like that it covers all
> of the classic problems in numerical analysis that a scientists would want
> to see from a scientists perspective. In the process integration, roundoff
> error, monte carlo simulation, ODEs and PDEs, data fitting, root finding,
> and fourier analysis are all covered.
>
> I would like the authors to consider expanding on the linear algebra methods
> covered, possibly including sparse matrix techniques and matrix
> decomposition in the event of a future edition.
>
> The prose of the text is quite readable, and the problems chosen are
> appropriate to the Physics curriculum. Images used help to illustrate the
> users points. In a few cases, higher quality perspective images might help
> the reader (e.g. figure 9.10, applet viewer frame, figure 11.5, right image,
> high resolution color image, or possibly a 2-D grayscale intensity plot
> might be helpful.) The included movies, however, greatly enhance this
> feature of the book.
>
> I like that multiple languages are included in the software examples, I
> think it is important for computational science students to see the
> different languages that are used in the field in context.
>
>
> Dave Joiner
>