Problem Documentation

The assignments in the first part of this course include exercises and problems. Exercises introduce a topic and allow you to begin coding a solution to a simple problem. Problems are more extended assignments that combine the technique developed in the exercise to a problem of physical interest. This page describes the documentation that should accompany your solutions to problems.

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1. A brief but complete statement of the problem you are trying to solve. This should be understandable by someone who is not taking the course. If you modify or extend the problem statement beyond the one given, be sure to describe your changes.

2. A brief description of what the program does and how it is used. What information is input, and how? What is the output? Be sure to include a description of the principal algorithm used. It is best to start with a verbal description, but you will probably also want to outline the procedure with a flow chart, pseudocode, or your favorite method of displaying the logic of a program. It should not be necessary to look at the program listing to figure out what the program does!

   For example, for a problem that involves solving Laplace’s or Poisson’s equation using an iteration method, you should not only describe the iteration algorithm but should answer the following questions: How are the boundary conditions entered? If they are built into the program, what are they? How is the initial choice of the potential V(x,y) determined for interior grid points? What is your criterion for convergence? If you draw field lines as well as equipotential lines, how were they determined?

3. Presentation and discussion of your results. This should be more than a mere printout of the program output. Comment on the physical interpretation of your results. Do they agree with your physical intuition? What evidence do you have that your results are reasonable?

4. A program listing and computer output. This is probably the least important of the four items listed, as most questions should be answered by the first three, but it should be included in order to provide a complete record of what you have done.

In general, your problem solution should be presented so that at some future time it might be useful to you as a concise description of a computational technique and an illustration of its application to a specific problem.

© 2003 Peter N. Saeta; last updated 2/19/03.