Weekly plans and update for week 42

Hi all and welcome back to FYS3150/4150. We obviously hope that the midterm week fared well with you all. 

Here's a brief update on our plans for this week and the next two ones wrt Monte Carlo methods. 

On Thursday we will wrap up our discussions about project 3, in particular repeat some basic elements if 3a and 3b as well as discussing multidimensional integrals with Monte Carlo methods. The latter material, with a similar example relevant for 3c and 3d is covered by the lecture slides (see the last slides) at for example http://compphysics.github.io/ComputationalPhysics/doc/pub/mcint/html/mcint.html

Thereafter we will also discuss on Thursday  how to compute random numbers with the random class in C++. This material is again contained in the slides on introduction to Monte Carlo methods, see http://compphysics.github.io/ComputationalPhysics/doc/pub/mcint/html/mcint.html

When we are done with this, we will start with Markov chains and discuss and drive the Metropolis algorithm, one of the central algorithms for sampling over many degrees of freedom.

The material is at for example http://compphysics.github.io/ComputationalPhysics/doc/pub/rw/html/rw-bs.html

This will prepare the ground for project 4, which deals with statistical physics (the project is available next Wednesday). 

Next week we continue with Markov chains and the Metropolis algorithm and venture into statistical physics and project 4. 

The week thereafter we continue with statistical physics and a discussion of project 4. We will also discuss some important technicalities regarding the computation of errors as well as the important theorem called the central limit theorem. 

Best wishes to you all and good luck with project 3.

Aram, Daniel, Halvard, Jonas and Morten