Physics of Information and Physics of Computation
UC Davis Physics 256A (Winter) and Physics 256B (Spring)

Interactive Materials in the Cloud

To start: Make an account on CoCalc.com using your @ucdavis.edu email address.

If enrolled, CoCalc.com sent you an email invite with instructions.

All labs and homework assignments are made available through CoCalc.com.

Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browsers are recommended.

Workflow for homeworks

• Homework assignments show up weekly (by Tuesday) in the Assignments folder in your account.
• Each is a Jupyter notebook—a file titled something like Homework 7.ipynb, for example.
• Make a copy of the homework assignment.
• Change the filename to Homework 7 TO GRADE.ipynb.
• Homework answers in Homework 7 TO GRADE.ipynb are collected automatically on the due date, generally one week after being assigned.
• Once collected, notebooks cannot be changed.

Workflow for labs

• Interactive labs also show up weekly (by Tuesday) in the Handouts folder.
• Each is a Jupyter notebook—a file titled something like Preparation Lab 7.ipynb.
• The labs prepare you for the homework problems and illustrate concepts from the lectures.
• They also provide Python programs you will use.
• Work through these notebooks.
• Feel free to make your own notebooks to experiment with and as temporary workspace for the homework solutions.

Reference material

• Student guide (Read!)
• Manual
• Jupyter Notebooks
• LaTeX editor for mathematics
• Symbolic algebra
• Python: We use Python 2.
• CMPy: Computational Mechanics in Python

Interactive Simulation Tools

• Lecture 3:
  1. Phase Plane (2D) Plotter
  2. MacOS Grapher: Van der Pol 2D vector field
  3. MacOS Grapher: Lorenz ODE 3D vector field
• Lecture 4:
  1. Desmos Graphing Calculatior: Cusp Catastrophe
  2. MacOS Grapher: Cusp Catastrophe
  3. MacOS Grapher: Butterfly Catastrophe
  4. MacOS Grapher: Swallow Tail Catastrophe
• Lectures 6 and 7:
  1. ODE Integrator and Dot Spreading