Last night I was sitting up and wondering if the use of symbolic computation, advanced computer languages, virtual reality, and massively parallel computers would ever lead to all physical phenomena being computed from just a few basic laws of physics. I closed my eyes and heard a voice from above, ``yes, but not in your lifetime''. I then wondered if this impressive array of interdisciplinary knowledge would work itself into the courses we teach. I leaned back in my chair again and heard a voice from above, ``yes, but not in MY lifetime''.
I hope my daydream is not prophetic. In fact, my goal in writing this article is to ensure that my lifetime will see good computational science courses containing significant interdisciplinary knowledge. But I admit some fear that my goal will not be reached if the courses are designed and taught by computer scientists. Don't get me wrong, I like compute scientists and it's a pleasure to learn from experts what they know best and love most. It is just that I have attended so many computational science meetings containing so much discussion by computer scientists trying to decide what scientists should know about computing, that it has started to get a little stale by now. It's not that what computer scientist have to say is wrong, but rather that by continually going through the lists of computer science subjects for us to know, the role of applications seems to get lost or forgotten.
I believe that computational science needs to focus some more on its
science and applications. And so when Greg Wilson posed the question
to me, ``...what computing skills should be taught to physical
scientists and engineers...'', I naturally though that while that
is an important question, I would prefer to tackle the question
``...what physical science skills should be taught along with the
computing skills...''. (The two are related, for by paring the
computing requirements down to a select few, science students can get
on to doing their science with a manageable--but still strong-set of
computing skills.) And so in this article I try to do a little of
both. In § 
there is my view of how I
would like to see computational science grow and prosper. In
§ there is a discussion of
an upper-level undergraduate/graduate course in computational physics
which tries to put my philosophy into action. I assess in
§ this computational physics course, and
in doing so focus on some of the basic computing skills I feel
students should acquire in order to be able to do computational
science.