Computational Physics with R

This book has two primary goals: To introduce the R language to the physics community and to demonstrate its advantages as a simulations’ tool; and to make physics simulations accessible to a wider audience of scientists via the use of the many powerful and ready-to-use R packages and R functions. It covers traditional topics in classical and quantum computational physics, but its emphasis is in the adoption of the many features, routines and modules of the R platform to save coding time and to exploit the enormous potential and efficiency of R functions for the generation and analysis of data. With the exclusion of the introductory chapters, each chapter includes sections presenting: a) a theoretical introduction to specific computational techniques, b) their application to well-defined physics examples, c) the R approach to the coding required and d) ready-to-use packages and functions in R to carry out the tasks included in the physics examples, e) suggested projects with guided solutions. Readers of the book will learn R within familiar applications in physics and will inevitably acquire the statistical set of mind infused by the continued use of this programming language.

Author Biography

Dr James Foadi is a mathematical and computational physicist with over 20 years of experience in the development of mathematical and statistical methods for Structural Biology. He has researched and taught in various universities across the UK and held a research position at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron for 10 years. For the past couple of years, Dr Foadi has focussed most of his working activity on the teaching of mathematics at the University of Bath.