Course Information
Description:
Astro 9: Python Programming in Astronomy is an introductory course in scientific programming with Python. It is aimed to benefit undergraduate students interested in learning programming skills useful for research in the physical sciences, with a contextual emphasis on physics and astrophysics. The course assumes no previous background in either the Python language or computer programming in general. We will begin by covering the basics of computer programming and the Python language. We will then study more advanced Python structures, and will eventually apply these topics to numerical modeling in astrophysical contexts and analysis of astronomical data sets.
Location:
Campbell Hall, Room 131A
Time:
3:40pm - 5pm on Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu from July 3rd - August 11th, 2017
Instructor:
Nick Kern (nkern@berkeley.edu)
TALC / Office Hours:
11am-12pm on Mon Room 121, 2-3pm on Fri in Room 233
Reader:
Brandon Coy (bpcoy@berkeley.edu)
Office Hours:
12-1pm Wed, & 11-12pm Thu in Room 121
Topics:
– Intro to Python (2 weeks)
– Computational Physics / Numerical Modeling (1-2 weeks)
– Data Analysis / Data Science (1-2 weeks)
– Advanced Topics + Final Projects (1 week)
Homeworks:
Weekly homework sets will be assigned, and are due the following Tuesday by 3pm.
We will be using GitHub classroom to assign and collect homework.
For parts of the homework that ask you to submit Python code, we require
that you use Python 3.0 or higher.
Exam and Final Project:
There will be a take-home midterm exam the week of July 24th.
Instead of final exams, we will work on final projects, which will be an application
of the tools and techniques we learned in class to some topic that interests you. It will
include a lab-report style write up. More info on this to come.
Each component of the class will be weighted as:
Homeworks 40%
Midterm 20%
Final Project 40%
Useful Resources:
– Computational Physics with Python, Mark Newman
– The Python Decal, UC Berkeley Astronomy
– The Python Tutorial
– Sortware Carpentry