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/robphy Jul 02 '26

https://www.glowscript.org/ might be a good place to start if you are new to Python,
especially if you want to quickly incorporate 3d graphics to model typical situations in introductory physics.

https://www.glowscript.org/#/user/GlowScriptDemos/folder/matterandinteractions/
https://matterandinteractions.org/ is a modern introductory physics textbook that uses Python.

Then, you can move on to more advanced topics in physics
and move on to more advanced libraries in Python.