Weekly sessions on Exploring Physics using Code, as part of the IISER M Physics club, Phi@I.
Egg-Paratha initially was concieved in 2021 by Akshay and Dhruva as a means to encourage discussion on research-oriented computational physics techniques. Unfortunately, it had a short life as the semester took over our time and motivation dwindled. The few sessions held during that time can be found here.
With the arrival of MS21, we decided that this is a good opportunity to restart Egg-Paratha, albeit with a new set of plans and a focus on long-term sustainability… meaning that we hope the sessions will be carried on by the members of Phi@I over time. More info can be found here.
Firstly, languages like C++ and Fortran are eliminated immediately. Although they do have a place in scientific computing, they are quite a hassle to work with for the kind of interactive explorations that we would like to do.
Secondly, we’re aware that most people are likely to have experience in python, but the syntactic switch to perform basic tasks is fairly simple (familiarity with basic programming concepts has more relevance here). Julia is preferred for reasons that will become clear over the course of the sessions.. but right off the bat, it is very convenient for scientific computing, and making plot-based animations is a breeze compared to python. We will discuss basic syntax and features as the sessions progress.
To ease this process, we have collated some useful Julia resources. If this is too much work, you can of course stick to your preferred language of choice, as the take-away from these sessions are meant to be new ways of thinking, rather than exploring the nuances of a particular language.
Note: Any potential hosts who are comfortable only with python are still encouraged to host sessions.
Everyone is welcome to join us and suggest new ideas! Do get in touch if you want to host a few sessions!