Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to Research with Python 1st Edition

by Anthony Scopatz (Author), Kathryn Huff (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-1491901533

ISBN-10: 1491901535

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More physicists today are taking on the role of software developer as part of their research, but software development isnÃ¢??t always easy or obvious, even for physicists. This practical book teaches essential software development skills to help you automate and accomplish nearly any aspect of research in a physics-based field.

Written by two PhDs in nuclear engineering, this book includes practical examples drawn from a working knowledge of physics concepts. YouÃ¢??ll learn how to use the Python programming language to perform everything from collecting and analyzing data to building software and publishing your results.

In four parts, this book includes:

Getting Started: Jump into Python, the command line, data containers, functions, flow control and logic, and classes and objects
Getting It Done: Learn about regular expressions, analysis and visualization, NumPy, storing data in files and HDF5, important data structures in physics, computing in parallel, and deploying software
Getting It Right: Build pipelines and software, learn to use local and remote version control, and debug and test your code
Getting It Out There: Document your code, process and publish your findings, and collaborate efficiently; dive into software licenses, ownership, and copyright procedures

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Anthony Scopatz is a computational physicist and long time Python developer, Anthony holds his BS in Physics from UC, Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Mechanical / Nuclear Engineering from UT Austin. A former Enthought employee, he spent his post-doctoral studies at the FLASH Center at the University of Chicago in the Astrophysics Department. He is currently a Staff Scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Maidson in Engineering Physics. Anthony’s research interests revolve around essential physics modeling of the nuclear fuel cycle, and information theory & entropy. Anthony is proudly a fellow of the Python Software Foundation and has published and spoken at numerous conferences on a variety of science & software development topics.

Kathryn Huff is a Fellow with the Berkeley Institute for Data Science and a postdoctoral scholar with the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium at the University of California Berkeley. In 2013, she received her Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She also holds a bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Chicago. She has participated in varied research including experimental cosmological astrophysics, experimental non-equilibrium granular material phase dynamics, computational nuclear fuel cycle analysis, and computational reactor accident neutronics. At Wisconsin, she was a founder of The Hacker Within scientific computing group and has been an instructor for Software Carpentry since 2011. Among other professional service, she is currently an division officer in the American Nuclear Society and has served two consecutive years as the Technical Program Co-Chair of the Scientific Computing with Python (SciPy) conference.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (August 4, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 550 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1491901535
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1491901533
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.97 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 1.25 x 9.19 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #166,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #62 in Mathematical Physics (Books)
- #95 in Software Testing
- #106 in Data Modeling & Design (Books)

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71 ratings

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Anthony Scopatz
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Kathryn D. Huff
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Kathryn Huff is a Fellow with the Berkeley Institute for Data Science and a postdoctoral scholar with the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium at the University of California Berkeley. In 2013, she received her Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She also holds a bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Chicago. She has participated in varied research including experimental cosmological astrophysics, experimental non-equilibrium granular material phase dynamics, computational nuclear fuel cycle analysis, and computational reactor accident neutronics. At Wisconsin, she was a founder of The Hacker Within scientific computing group and has been an instructor for Software Carpentry since 2011. She is now the Chair of the Software Carpentry Foundation Steering Committee. Among other professional service, she is currently an division officer in the American Nuclear Society and has served three consecutive years on the organizing committee of the Scientific Computing with Python (SciPy) conference.
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Customer reviews

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2 star		7%
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Eerik

Not for people who only want to learn python.

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2019

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As the title of the book says; you learn computation in physics with little bit of python.

If you want to learn python and no physics/science; this book IS NOT for you. If you are a scientist who wants to learn automation for you projects; this book IS for you.

I bought this book for learning python, I am not a scientist nor a phycicist. Every practice in this book revolves around physics and atoms, they are very hard to understand if you're not a scientist yourself.

First one hundred pages are decent python learning material, the rest is for automating atom science applications.

I should've done more research about this book before spending over 40 dollars for this. Well this was a lesson.

10 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Good book, don't use for learning Python

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2021

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This is more of a "here's how we physicists do scientific computation, oh and here's some Python basics" rather than a real tutorial on Python. This will get you into the ecosystem but that's about it, you'll need another solution to actually learn Python in any practical manner. On the other hand, it is a good attempt at addressing the breadth of knowledge useful to those of us that work in scientific or engineering computation. But for the most part I was hoping for more depth. Some very bare bones parts in here, like "here's a python package you'll want for doing this general thing, now go and look on stackoverflow or the package docs on how to actually use it", pattern repeated throughout. But if you aren't familiar about what the field of scientific computation entails this is a good primer.

One person found this helpful

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Tanis Coralee Leonhardi

Use Python for plotting

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2020

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I use different coding languages for different purposes. MATLAB is my go-to for scientific programming that is visual-intensive. C++ or C is my preferred language for heavy computational work that does not necessarily require plotting images (I follow up with quick plots in gnuplot). Unix is amazing for fast computations, working with files and directories on my computer, and working with supercomputers. HTML is great for websites (it was the first coding language I learned, I was 13 years old at the time). For me personally, I prefer Python for plotting purposes, you can do some really cool things with Matplotlib. Good book for familiarizing yourself with Python in a computational physics context.

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SeferTech

The book I wish I had 10 years ago when I started playing with Python...

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2015

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This book should be required (and enjoyable) reading for any student/researcher/scientist/engineer new to scientific computing. The book presents a modern account of the Python scientific computing environment from the command line to publication and everything good in between e.g. NumPy to parallel computing to version control and much more (see http://physics.codes for more). The book also helps you get quickly going with Python on your computer via the Anaconda environment which is very nice. I bought the Kindle version and plan to read it on my iPad while I try the programs (freely available for download at the above website) on my Macbook (ideal combination in my opinion) - it's never been more fun to be in scientific computing that it is these days and this book will help you get started or, like me, maintain and update your overall computational skill set. A must buy and a must read! Enjoy!

8 people found this helpful

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Dan O'Leary

Ambitious but ultimately disappointing.

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2020

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It’s just not reasonable to expect to do justice to all the topics this book attempts to cover in 500 pages. I picked up a little here and there but every section left me wanting much, much more. If you want a brief introduction to a very broad range of topics covering the full work flow, this might be for you. Even then it is showing its age and the writing is a bit of a hodgepodge of styles. For useful depth you will have to go elsewhere.

I wish I could give it better than 3 stars. If a greatly expanded second or third edition were available it would be great. Until then this is too little, too late.

One person found this helpful

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Rusty Shackleford

So much more than a python book...

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2021

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Amazingly practical book. I anticipate this will remain a staple in my reference library. I truly wish other books were as thorough as this one. Highest recommendation.

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Doroth

Learn under a fun narrative

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2015

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This book has been teaching me more than effective computation! I've learned about the community, the myths and the jokes so that I can laugh as well. The digital version contains color-coded python code, really awesome

One person found this helpful

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John G

Look at "Who the book is/isn't for" before buying.

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2015

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Given the comments I had seen by others I had higher expectations for this book. There is a brief section early in the book titled "Who this book is not for" that states "If you have already been working as a software developer for several years, this book will help you only minimally". If I had seen that before purchasing the book I probably wouldn't have purchased it. While I wouldn't describe myself as a software developer, coding has always been an essential part of my professional toolkit. I was hoping for something that would help take my game to the next level but this wasn't it.

12 people found this helpful

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Very useful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2019

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This is a really good book, including for those who don't aren't Physicists. It's great for anyone doing any kind of numerical research work that requires/could greatly benefit from good computational skills. It covers a wide range of topics, so it's great for getting introduced to a lot of different things. It doesn't go into great detail for all that it covers, but at the very least gives a good sense of the material, which you can then dig into further elsewhere. It's nice to have strong coverage on command line work, version control, general Python stuff, and development-type work all in one book, making it a useful one to own a copy of.

One person found this helpful

Mr Simon P I Harris

Old and resources incomplete and not updated

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book is now a little old. Directions to places in your OS as now incorrect. Github seems to have not been updated since 2017 despite many issues with bugs and missing files reported. This means that many exercises cannot be started or if you can start errors may be encountered, not at all helpful for the learner.

This was once a good book but now find something more recent or there will be some frustration coming your way.

Will D

Has EVERYTHING I need

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

Being new to python at university studying physics, this book really got me up to speed with the components of python. While it doesn't go very in depth to some of the components, its overview of them is brilliant, it lets you know that they are there for you and that if need be you'll have an idea as to what is required to complete your task.

Amazon Customer

Very good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2019

Verified Purchase

Very good

Andrea B.

Ottimo testo, rilegatura di scarsa qualità.

Reviewed in Italy on July 18, 2019

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Il testo è interessante e sicuramente molto utile: offre una panoramica degli strumenti a disposizione dei ricercatori, ma non solo. Purtroppo la rilegatura del volume lascia a desiderare e alcune pagine si sono staccate nonostante il libro sia stato maneggiato con cura.

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Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to Research with Python 1st Edition

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