From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,a9b0810d3106d9b8 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news3.google.com!feeder.news-service.com!feeder.news-service.com!94.75.214.39.MISMATCH!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Fun with C Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:28:24 -0700 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: References: <27cf3992-4132-4483-9110-adc7a089cd4a@e8g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> <3ccf18a2-ba10-42bc-aeab-9368749961fb@a11g2000pro.googlegroups.com> <4c2b6a58-e3b6-47da-95e0-64853be5c1f9@v11g2000prb.googlegroups.com> <86748003-860f-4729-ae26-55be1e58ac2b@d27g2000vbz.googlegroups.com> <4b5748dc-60fa-4cec-a317-054626e9a1ca@d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <1908th3tyz101.1f6c5w8t9mggy.dlg@40tude.net> <2118e788-7b3e-4d25-8d0f-5e60498e3a3b@cu4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> <1hnl95prvrt6i$.1s675gncbjxsu$.dlg@40tude.net> <5d44db50-ceff-4f4d-8bc7-714f31fbca06@hd10g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> <0eba8ffa-6d67-4957-8be3-8fbc3c2ea903@u38g2000prd.googlegroups.com> Reply-To: nma@12000.org NNTP-Posting-Host: tUYQ4Ty9mMw9Pdc8TJRFQA.user.speranza.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Thunderbird/3.1.9 X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:19988 Date: 2011-04-23T10:28:24-07:00 List-Id: On 4/23/2011 8:23 AM, George P. wrote: > Just out of curiosity, why physicists should learn C? Isn't FORTRAN > much better choice for them? > Yes and No. First, there are really two types of physics courses: computational physics, where the emphasis is on solving physics problems computationally, and there are the classical physics courses, where the emphasis is on solving physics problems analytically. Some courses have a combination of both. For STUDENTS, Fortran is not a good choice for many of the physics courses, other than the ones with more of the computational aspect. Look at any physics dept. these days, hardly anyone is using Fortran any more for teaching. Also, Fortran does not have plotting ability build-in, so if a student solves a differential equation using Fortran and wants to plot the solution, then how to do it? Then have to go learn a new system, maybe gnuplot, learn how to save the data correctly from the Fortran program, etc... Most student have hard time just learning how to open a file, never mind all the rest. Ada would have been a good choice for computational physics, but it also have the same problem when it comes to visualization. That is why, for teaching physics, better to use a packaged system, which makes it easy for students to use, and they can concentrate on the physics, not on the nitty gritty of 'coding'. For courses with more analytical physics, Mathematica/Maple/Sage type systems are better, since they allow symbolic computation, and for the more computational physics courses, other alternative are available, such as Matlab/Ocatve etc..might be a good choice also. The point is to learn physics with least waste of time in the implementation part of the solution of the physics problem. But any one of the above is better than C. --Nasser