MAS212 Scientific Computing and Simulation
(2019–20)

Course information

MAS212 is a first-semester module which covers various techniques in scientific computing, and their implementation in Python. The course is intended to follow on from MAS115 Mathematical Investigation Skills.

Timetable information

MOLE

MOLE has some course materials, such as video clips.

Software and setup

We use the Anaconda distribution of Python (version 3.7), which includes Jupyter Notebook and Spyder.

Anaconda3 is available on (the majority of) managed desktop machines. From the 'Start' menu, select the folder 'Anaconda3 (64-bit)'.

Download and install Anaconda on your computer – choose the Python 3.7 version.

Learning resources

There are many books on Python and scientific computing. For this course, I recommend Learning scientific programming with Python by Christian Hill (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Copies are available in the library.

A range of material is available on the web, including:

• Think Python: How to think like a computer scientist

• A crash course in Python for scientists

• Python scientific lecture notes

Course content