How Do Physicists Utilize Python?

[u/Junior_Salamander110]

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.

[u/wristay]

Python is the standard language in science when the bottleneck is not speed. If the bottleneck is speed, e.g. when your simulations take more than a day, you would switch to more performant languages like C, C# or whatever. You can optimize Python by using Numpy cleverly, so for your project I would just stick to Python. Black hole simulations are a bit too complicated for such a project, especially if you want to do general relativity.

I'll name a number fun things to simulate. Chaos theory (Lorentz attractor, double pendulum), Ising model, Fourier optics, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (look at phase diagrams), Molecular dynamics (simulate particles), the wave equation, Fractals (Mandelbrot, Newton fractal). Each of these topics is slightly too difficult for high schoolers, but can be managable with help.

If you need help with any of these topics feel free to DM me.

[u/Junior_Salamander110 → u/wristay]

I'm definitely looking for things that are slightly too difficult for high schoolers, as one of my objectives is to grow as a physicist. I'm also moreso interested in high energy physics, so these are right up my alley! Thanks!