Introductory Excel for Scientists and Engineers

This course is designed to teach you the broad outlines of modern computational physics using no programming or coding whatsoever. To do this, we'll use the sort of tool almost everyone has installed on their machines: spreadsheet software. Excel, WPS, Libreoffice, any will do. We're going to see that just the capacity to add in formulas and iteratively calculate across your worksheet is enough to achieve spectacular things.

This course is split into two sections, representing the most common uses of computing for students of the sciences and engineering:

Differential Equations

We're going to use modern techniques, especially variants of the finite difference method, to find solutions to differential equations numerically without any expensive or complicated specialist software.

• Euler's Method

• Taylor Series

• Runge-Kutta

• Higher Order Equations

• Stiff Equations

• Predictor-Corrector Methods

While for advanced applications like fluid dynamics this must be extended, these topics provide a good grounding of the fundamentals for all modern methods.

Experimental Statistics

If you have experimental data, interpreting its meaning can be complicated and prone to mistakes that can destroy the validity of your whole experiment! We're going to look at the tools common spreadsheet software has available to us to fit distributions, extract statistical details and test hypotheses.

• Normal distributions

• The Mean and Standard Deviation

• The Weibull Distribution

• Failure analysis

• Student's T-Test

Disclaimer:

This course is not a substitute for a degree in applied mathematics or specialist consultancy, by purchasing this course you agree that the course instructor is in no way liable for any disputes, claims, losses, injuries, or damage of any kind that might arise out of or relate to the content of this course or any supporting communications between instructor and student.