Jesse M. Kinder

Personally, I found that there are many good books that teach Computational physics. But most of them are very costly(atleast in my country's amazon) and not written for an absolute beginner. Furthermore most of them don't focus on Python(they go with either Matlab, which is costly to buy or other comparatively lower level programming languages like C, FORTRAN etc.). This book seems to nail it with the right price and the right content, for a beginner in the exciting field of Computational Physics.

This book teaches you the very basics of Python and then covers the most important functions in Numpy, Pyplot and Scipy modules which enables to do Python to do scientific computing. It gives you the foundation so that after completing the book the reader can hack and learn further techniques by trying to model problems themselves. This suits my learning style - I don't want everything given to me on a silver platter but rather want to learn myself with external help when necessary.

The examples provided are pretty good and just enough in number for beginners. They don't bombard you with 'try this one, try that one' - they give you just enough and ask you to hack it all you can and have fun! The fact that some of the assignment questions in this 'Physical' modelling book ask you to model 'biological' systems seems unfair(turns out that the authors have a computational biology book too), but anyways, Physics or Biology, Science is Science and anyone with the right mind can translate the techniques learnt to similar Physical systems too.

The book demands you to try stuff out on your computer as and when you are reading. So the flow of reading might not be that fast i.e. even though the book is just 140 pages or so it will take you considerably more time to complete it than you might initially feel you are gonna take. But that is fine - it is a textbook and that's how textbooks work. On a side note, since you are going to code in your PC simultaneously as you are reading, it is better to get a Kindle book or ebook, but that is your preference.

One minor thing, near the titles of each chapter there are some amazing quotes by eminent programmers and others which is a pretty cool thing! Thumbs up for the authors on that! :-)

Bottomline: If you are a Physics student and you are passionate about Computational Physics and want to get started with learning it then this is the perfect book for you. Look no where else!… (plus d'informations)