6 ECTS credits
180 h study time

Offer 1 with catalog number 4015687FNR for all students in the 1st semester at a (F) Master - specialised level.

Semester
1st semester
Enrollment based on exam contract
Impossible
Grading method
Grading (scale from 0 to 20)
Can retake in second session
Yes
Taught in
English
Partnership Agreement
Under agreement for exchange of courses
Faculty
Faculty of Sciences and Bioengineering Sciences
Department
Physics
Educational team
Sophie De Buyl
Stijn Buitink (course titular)
Activities and contact hours
26 contact hours Lecture
26 contact hours Seminar, Exercises or Practicals
Course Content

 

This course is an introduction to the major methods in numerical analysis, insisting on those methods that play an important role in theoretical and applied physics. The course considers the following topics. Chapter 1 summarizes the properties of the continuous and discrete Fourier transform and the application to digital filtering. The second Chapter presents the basic interpolation techniques, including Shannon sampling and Splines. Chapter 3 introduces numerical integration and deals also with the Monte-Carlo method and its application to nuclear physics. Chapter 4 deals with the numerical solution of ordinary differential equations, and Chapter 5 gives a very short discussion of integral equations. Optimization methods are presented in Chapter 6, with specific details over the optimization of quadratic functions. Chapter 7 introduces unsupervised learning techniques, in particular principal component analysis and clustering methods.

Course material
Handbook (Recommended) : Numerical Recipes, The Art of Scientific Computing, S. A. Teukolsky, W. T. Vetterling, B. P. Flannery, 3de, Cambridge University Press., 9780521880688, 2007
Handbook (Recommended) : An Introduction to Statistical Learning, With Applications in R, James - Witten - Hastie - Tibshirani, Springer-Verlag, 9781071614174, 2023
Additional info

Numerical Recipes in C, by W. H. Press, S. A. Teukolsky, W. T. Vetterling, B. P. Flannery. Cambridge University Press.

 

An introduction to Statistical Learning, G. James, D. Witten, T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, Springer 2013

Learning Outcomes

General Competencies

i/ Knowledge of the basic methods in numerical analysis.
ii/ Initial experimentation with the concrete analysis and treatment of examples of simple problems in physics.

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
PRAC Presentation determines 50% of the final mark.
PRAC Practical Assignment determines 50% of the final mark.

Within the PRAC Presentation category, the following assignments need to be completed:

  • WPO presentation with a relative weight of 1 which comprises 50% of the final mark.

Within the PRAC Practical Assignment category, the following assignments need to be completed:

  • examen mondeling with a relative weight of 1 which comprises 50% of the final mark.

Additional info regarding evaluation

 

 

Allowed unsatisfactory mark
The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context

This offer is part of the following study plans:
Master of Photonics Engineering: On campus traject
Master of Photonics Engineering: Online/Digital traject
Master of Physics and Astronomy: Minor Research
Master of Physics and Astronomy: Minor Economy and Business
Master of Physics and Astronomy: Minor Education
Master of Teaching in Science and Technology: fysica (120 ECTS, Etterbeek) (only offered in Dutch)