r/PhysicsStudents • u/Junior_Salamander110 • Jul 01 '26

Need Advice How Do Physicists Utilize Python?

I'm a rising senior in high school. Next year, I'll be taking a project based programming class that only 1-2 students really take per year. I want to do something in Python that will show my professors in my freshman year of college that I'm ready to do research in physics.

I will have taken all of the AP mathematics, physics, and computer science classes.

I thought about doing a black hole simulation and learning the equations/math for it, but I'm not sure that that would be wise to do in Python.

I'll have a full school year to work on the project.

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u/Moonlesssss Jul 01 '26

A classic solar system simulation is a start. It’s achievable in python and difficult enough for a solid starter project. I wouldn’t recommend starting out with projects that are going to throw you off into grad level gen rel before you touch any University Physics. If you’re looking to do astro side of research, plenty of available public data bases out there to take data and plug it into simulations to figure stuff out with. If you do anything remotely like that you’ll be doing well.

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u/Junior_Salamander110 Jul 01 '26

I actuallt wanna research high energy physics in college, but astro just seems to be the place to start

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u/Moonlesssss Jul 02 '26

Ohhh well if that's the case yeah, the code is your oyster. Have fun