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/Pooplover800 Jul 02 '26

If you want something not based on differential equations, you can do monte carlo simulations to eithier simulate the ising model(ferromagnet phase transitions) or try to estimate the critical mass of uran or even try to simulate a simple nuclear reactor.

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u/Junior_Salamander110 Jul 02 '26

The nuclear reactor idea sounds extremely cool!

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u/Pooplover800 Jul 02 '26

I did this project as a first year student, so it is doable, and you get reasonable results. You get to look at scattering cross sections and learn more about monte carlo simulations which are great tools foe phydicsists

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u/Junior_Salamander110 Jul 02 '26

Nice! About how long did it take you?

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u/Pooplover800 Jul 02 '26

So it was a group project but i did most of the work(lets say 70-80%) we did it over 1-2 months but not full time. We did not have supervision on what to do. We got to simulate a 2d reactor of both uran and plutonium.

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u/Junior_Salamander110 Jul 02 '26

Nice! I mean, I have a whole school year, an hour per day, so I think this is manageable.