The University of Malta is proud to announce the establishment of a new course in computational physics. This Computational Physics Degree is the result of cross collaboration between various departments, and involved primarily the Physics Department within the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of ICT.

Its aim is to foster the ability of seamlessly moving from the derivation of the laws governing a system, to their expression in terms of mathematical expression so that they can be finally solved numerically using computational tools.

The scale of our ability to do numerical calculations was dramatically changed with the introduction of electronic devices that were able to carry out the computations automatically. By using computers to solve the governing equations of various systems, scientists are able to study major problems in Physics such as the evolution of the universe, electromagnetic field calculations, fluid mechanics and climate change among others, in a way that is not possible either through the use of theory on its own or through experimentation.

This use of computer simulations has also allowed scientists to analyse data such as that obtained from experiments carried out in the Large Hadron Collider or the observations of the Hubble Space Telescope, which otherwise would have been untreatable given the exceedingly large volume of information.

The methodologies developed to study such problems have also been adopted in other fields. For example, nowadays many electronic games try to incorporate appropriate physical laws on the way things move, such in the representation of the flow of a fluid or projectiles. As a related application, computational finance uses analogous techniques to predict the global economy. In fact many computational physicists have ended up working in the financial industry.

In this context, the new Computational Physics Degree aims at providing the basic physical, computational and mathematical tools to students interested in this area. It does so through the use of extensive computational practicals where the physical and mathematical concepts learned in the theoretical classes are implemented using computational techniques. This is meant to create a seamless transition between the theoretical and numerical aspects of the subject.

The course, which will start in October, is aimed at students who would like to work in such an area. The basic requirements are a good grasp of physics and mathematics. Further information can be obtained by contacting the Department of Physics in the Faculty of Science by phone 2340 2524 or email [email protected]