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Surprising physics news
Jul. 8th, 2005 12:05 amStarting next year, the Physics 50 programming/numerical methods lab will not feature IDL, that mainstay of numerical calculations and data analysis both in research and in all the classes where we have had to write our own codes (the hours I spent getting the Fourier analysis of a heartbeat code to work for 111 last fall are still memorable). Instead, John plans to switch the lab to a combination of Matlab and Mathematica.
Matlab presumably has most of the features of IDL without many of its little idiosyncracies... for one it will be OS X native rather than through UNIX X-Windows. Getting nice vector-drawn graphics output is supposed to be easier - no fiddling with code to change the output graphics device to PostScript and then replotting. No need for weird code to do file input/output. I don't know Matlab, but presumably it's more user friendly - I'll probably stick with IDL for now since I've written a lot in it and it is the language of choice in SSX. As for Mathematica... we have all learned how to use it as a super-calculator, capable of doing even the nastiest multidimensional integrals and the most tedious linear algebra (anybody else feel like diagonalizing by hand a 16x16 matrix in doing a quantum perturbation theory calculation?) It is, however, capable of much more, and I'm quite unfamiliar with the programming capabilities of Mathematica.
But oh, dear IDL, you have been so much a part of the Swarthmore physics education of many of us... You were even featured in multiple T-shirt design competition entries. Despite the number of times I've sworn at you as my code produced obvious garbage or just wouldn't run, you will always be a part of my Swarthmore memories.
On a more serious note, may the souls of those killed in today's bombings in London rest in peace.
Matlab presumably has most of the features of IDL without many of its little idiosyncracies... for one it will be OS X native rather than through UNIX X-Windows. Getting nice vector-drawn graphics output is supposed to be easier - no fiddling with code to change the output graphics device to PostScript and then replotting. No need for weird code to do file input/output. I don't know Matlab, but presumably it's more user friendly - I'll probably stick with IDL for now since I've written a lot in it and it is the language of choice in SSX. As for Mathematica... we have all learned how to use it as a super-calculator, capable of doing even the nastiest multidimensional integrals and the most tedious linear algebra (anybody else feel like diagonalizing by hand a 16x16 matrix in doing a quantum perturbation theory calculation?) It is, however, capable of much more, and I'm quite unfamiliar with the programming capabilities of Mathematica.
But oh, dear IDL, you have been so much a part of the Swarthmore physics education of many of us... You were even featured in multiple T-shirt design competition entries. Despite the number of times I've sworn at you as my code produced obvious garbage or just wouldn't run, you will always be a part of my Swarthmore memories.
On a more serious note, may the souls of those killed in today's bombings in London rest in peace.
