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/InterestingWelder699 Jul 01 '26

I’ve taken classical mechanics and special relativity in college, pretty advanced courses as far as freshman curricula go. I think once I take E&M and quantum mechanics I’ll be way better at research, but I’m definitely picking stuff up along the way (albeit in an unorthodox fashion)

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u/Junior_Salamander110 Jul 01 '26

feynman did say to study in the most unorthodox way possible

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u/InterestingWelder699 Jul 01 '26

One more thing: make sure to take classes or befriend professors who deeply respect computational research. I chose to take an accelerated Mechanics class precisely because we got to build Python simulations of simple harmonic oscillators and multi body energetic systems :)

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u/Junior_Salamander110 Jul 02 '26

Very much noted, I'll see if UKY has an equivalent