Week 1

Week 2

2026/08/31 Mon - Lecture 2 Program flow control
- Boolean algebra
- comparison operators
- conditional statements
- loops
- series
2026/09/02 Wed - Lecture 3 Functions and scripts
- organizing work in multiple files
- revisit package import
- Taylor expansion
2026/09/04 Fri - Lab 2 Debugging and troubleshooting
- what does it mean that program is working
- how long should program run
- test cases
- debugging with print
- step debugging
- debugging when error occurs

2026/09/07 Mon - Labor day
2026/09/09 Wed - Lecture 4 Data reduction and fitting (AI driven)
- choosing a model
- chi square parameter
- goodness of the fit
- what fitter does under the hood
- assessing quality of fit
- uncertainty of the fit
- uncertainty of the data
2026/09/11 Fri - Lab 3 Data reduction and fitting practice (AI driven)
- choosing a model
- is this model any good
- over fitting
- physicist debugging

2026/09/14 Mon - Lecture 5 Root finding
- general idea of non blind root finding
- bisection method
- Newton-Raphson method
- how to calculate a function derivative
- danger of very small steps in derivative calculation
- built in methods
- root finding algorithms gotchas
2026/09/16 Wed - Lecture 6 Integration
- integration problem statement
- the rectangle method
- better approximation with trapezoids and parabolas (Simpson) method
- built in methods
2026/09/18 Fri - Lab 4 Integrals and root finding gotchas
- the curse of high dimension
- precision vs speed
- adaptive integration idea

2026/09/21 Mon - Lecture 7 Random numbers
- different distributions
- mean and standard deviation
- simple simulations with random numbers
2026/09/23 Wed - Lecture 8 Monte Carlo integration
- tuning random distribution for function under integral
- generating non standard distributions
- numerical integration methods error estimates
- avoiding of the curse of high dimension
2026/09/25 Fri - Midterm

2026/09/28 Mon - Lecture 9 AI driven simulation of a colony part 1
- defining rules
- using rigid rules
- visualization
- interaction rules
2026/09/30 Wed - Lecture 10 AI driven simulation of a colony part 2
- Monte Carlo simulation
- probabilistic interactions
- adding extra interaction factors
- observing evolution
2026/10/02 Fri - Lab 5 AI driven simulation of a colony part 3
- finding averages on multiple runs
- extracting important parameters
- collective behavior
- survival of the fittest

2026/10/05 Mon - Lecture 11 The method which rule them all - Optimization, part 1 combinatorics
- combinatoric problem
- Backpack problem example
- brute force and execution time
- stopping early
2026/10/07 Wed - Lecture 12 Optimization part 2, smooth functions
- built ins
- optimization gotchas
- global optimum problem
2026/10/08 Thu - Fall break
2026/10/09 Fri - Fall break
2026/10/10 Sat - Fall break
2026/10/11 Sun - Fall break

2026/10/12 Mon - Lecture 13 Optimization part 3, noisy problems
- Metropolis and other methods
- Where should I put my points when experimental data is collected
- Least surprise idea
2026/10/14 Wed - Lecture 14 Optimization part 4, demystifying neural networks and AI
- Universal approximation theorem
- how NN do it
2026/10/16 Fri - Lab 6 Optimization practice

2026/10/19 Mon - Lecture 15 Solving system of linear equations
- built ins
- under defined and over defined problem
- noisy equations
- use case Single Pixel Imaging
2026/10/21 Wed - Lecture 16 Speeding up calculations
- pre compiling code with Numba
- parallel computing
- built ins
- examples
2026/10/23 Fri - Midterm

2026/10/26 Mon - (Last day to withdraw) Lecture 17 Interpolation (sometimes we do not need AI)
- filling the gaps
- polynomial fit
- nearest neighbors
- linear
- high order interpolation
- what plot function do when we ask to connect points
2026/10/28 Wed - Lecture 18 Ordinary differential equations part 1
- how to recognize them
- hot to set the problem
2026/10/30 Fri - Lab 7 practice
- TBD

2026/11/02 Mon - Lecture 19 Ordinary differential equations part 2
- many body interaction
- time dependent forces
- example of network interconnection graph
2026/11/03 Tue - Election day
2026/11/04 Wed - Lecture 20 Ordinary differential equations part 3
- TBD
2026/11/06 Fri - Lab 8 practice
- TBD