Modeling and Simulation in Python + bezmaksas piegāde! | Bookbook.lv

Apraksts

The essential skills of modeling — abstraction, analysis, simulation, and vali-
dation — are central in engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, medicine,
and many other fields. Some students learn these skills implicitly, but in most
schools they are not taught explicitly, and students get little practice. That’s
the problem this book is meant to address.

At Olin College, we use this book in a class called Modeling and Simulation,
which all students take in their first semester. My colleagues, John Geddes
and Mark Somerville, and I developed this class and taught it for the first time
in 2009.

It is based on our belief that modeling should be taught explicitly, early, and
throughout the curriculum. It is also based on our conviction that computation
is an essential part of this process.

If students are limited to the mathematical analysis they can do by hand, they
are restricted to a small number of simple physical systems, like a projectile
moving in a vacuum or a block on a frictionless plane.

And they will only work with bad models; that is, models that are too simple
for their intended purpose. In nearly every mechanical system, air resistance
and friction are essential features; if we ignore them, our predictions will be
wrong and our designs won’t work.

In most freshman physics classes, students don’t make modeling decisions;
sometimes they are not even aware of the decisions that have been made for
them. Our goal is to teach the entire modeling process and give students a
chance to practice it.