Comment
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02371-2
Computing in physics education
Marcos D. Caballero & Tor Ole B. Odden
Computing is central to the enterprise of
physics but few undergraduate physics
courses include it in their curricula. Here we
discuss why and how to integrate computing
into physics education.
Physicists use computing to control experiments, to model physical
systems and to analyse data. Many recent breakthroughs in physics have
been enabled by large-scale computational collaborations, including
several Nobel-prize-winning discoveries. And computing is not going
away: computational hardware and software continues to improve,
data science and machine learning methods continue to make their way
into physics research, and quantum computing systems are gradually
coming online for research use. Clearly, future physicists will need
strong computational skills to be active members of the profession.
However, these innovative and important uses of computing are
largely absent from the experiences of most physics students because
those teaching computing in physics are few in number. We know that
those teachers are already convinced of the utility of computing1. So,
with the advent of widely available, cheap and open-source comput-
ing tools, along with several decades of research on how to integrate
computing into physics education, there is now an opportunity to
rethink how physics is taught.
An opportunity to renew the physics curriculum
At many universities, physics education has remained stable since the
middle of the twentieth century. For example, in the USA the under-
graduate physics curriculum—that is, the standard set of course-
work and activities in an accredited physics major—looks much the
same as it did 60 years ago. A 1963 report on physics curricular stand-
ards published in the American Journal of Physics reads almost identi-
cally to a standard undergraduate curriculum at most major research
universities2.
Within this existing curricular structure, there have been numer-
ous innovations in pedagogy. Over the past four decades, physics
education researchers have systematically developed, studied and
deployed research-based instructional strategies: for example, peer
instruction, interactive lecture demonstrations, inquiry-based lab-
oratory tasks and so on. The success of these strategies in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classrooms is well
documented: students taking these courses consistently demonstrate
higher conceptual knowledge, often develop stronger social ties, and
typically continue in STEM work3.
There have also been some efforts to revisit and revise this cur-
riculum, especially in introductory physics courses for non-majors. For
example, new courses on introductory physics for the life sciences have
completely restructured the canonical two-semester sequence to focus
on the important physics of biological systems. Innovative upper-level
physics curricula have also adopted research-based instructional tech-
niques and developed curriculum materials that improve students’
nature physics
Check for updates
understanding of advanced undergraduate physics concepts4.
However, large-scale curricular change is rare in physics.
The need for computational literacy in physics
A lack of computing education in physics curricula worked for a world
in which computing was a necessary tool only for select physics majors.
But going forward, it seems clear that all physics majors will need some
degree of computational literacy to meet the needs of research, indus-
try and education.
Students planning a career in academic research or teaching will
need computational skills to construct experiments, to build models
and to analyse data. Those who go straight to work after graduation
will need computational skills to be competitive; indeed, recently
employed bachelor’s degree graduates often indicate that computing
is usually a central part of their responsibilities5. Students planning
to become physics teachers will need computational skills to cover
the computational thinking requirements that are making their way
into national educational standards6. And, regardless of career path,
it is important that students are trained to critically evaluate models,
statistics and data in a world increasingly populated with digitally
generated misinformation.
Furthermore, research in physics education has shown that com-
putation can substantially improve physics teaching and learning.
Open-ended computational projects can help students to acquire early
research skills, and can expose them to the creative side of physics
work7. Computational activities can develop skills in the construction
and revision of physics models and facilitate access to more complex
problems and systems earlier in students’ physics careers8. The visuali-
zations obtained from computational simulations can provide students
with helpful physical insights and intuition about the dynamics of the
systems they study9.
The recent explosion of inexpensive hardware, open-source
software and fast internet connections has made it easier for physics
educators to bring computing experiences into their classrooms.
Professional organizations for physics have acted on these needs by
providing suggestions for those looking to integrate computing into
their teaching10, community recommendations for effective comput-
ing instructional practices and teaching development opportunities.
Research into the impact of integrating computing into physics is
also growing11. So the time is ripe to think through how to help physics
students to become computationally literate.
Helping physics students to become computationally
literate
We see three essential elements of computational literacy. First,
students need a basic familiarity with the computational tools used
by physicists: for example, programming languages like Python or
MATLAB, developer environments and a basic understanding of
hardware and operating systems. Next, students should learn the
most common computational physics techniques and practices: for
instance, data plotting and visualization; numerical integration and
differentiation; common algorithms like the method of relaxation and
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Comment
Monte Carlo simulation; and, increasingly, machine learning tools like
neural networks. Finally, students will need experience in the forms of
communication and collaboration specific to computational physics:
creating high-quality plots and graphs; presenting their code through
notebooks, reports and research talks or group meetings; and using
version-control software like GitHub.
Over the years, the physics education community has developed a
variety of approaches that can help students to acquire these different
elements. To get started, many instructors integrate one or more simple
computational exercises into a selected course: this could be a single
laboratory task or a few homework questions. Over time, instructors
may then add exercises, one or two at a time, until they form a coherent
thread through the course.
There are many examples of activities available online, like simula-
tion problems (https://www.compadre.org/picup/) and exercises using
smartphone or Arduino sensors12. For instance, many instructors use
simulation-based exercises to help students to investigate analytically
tricky (or intractable) systems such as motion with air resistance or
gravitational interactions between three orbiting bodies. Students
could also use their smartphones to take acceleration data when riding
up and down in an elevator, then numerically integrate that data to plot
position and velocity as a function of time and find the total height of
the elevator shaft. This can then be compared to an experimentally
measured value.
Some departments have existing, stand-alone computational
physics courses. They often provide students with an overview of
classic problems and techniques that are fundamental to computa-
tional physics: for instance, the chaotic motion of a double pendulum;
numerical solutions to the time-independent Schrödinger equation;
solving Laplace’s equation using the method of relaxation; and analys-
ing magnetic domains and phase transitions using the Ising model13.
However, although these courses are useful in helping students to
become computationally literate in physics, it is important to continu-
ally review and re-evaluate them, considering the rapid advances in
computational physics practice and technology.
Physics departments looking for a deeper integration of comput-
ing into their major often partner with the departments of computing,
computer science and/or informatics to offer specialized courses on
computing in science courses early in the students’ careers. These
courses can help students to gain confidence with programming and
reduce the pressure on physics departments.
Challenges and resources for integrating computation into
physics education
It can be challenging to integrate computing into physics courses. At
the departmental level, the standard physics curriculum is crowded
and existing courses often struggle to accommodate all the con-
cepts and techniques that are desirable to teach. At the same time, it
should be said that instructors do control the curriculum: some ele-
ments are more important than others and strategic decisions have
been made before2. Computing resources (like hardware, servers or
licenses) might also be constrained; however, many resources for
teaching computing are open-source and free. Furthermore, these
materials can often run on legacy hardware for most teaching and
learning purposes.
At the student level, computing will be new to many, since few
high-schoolers learn about it. It is also well documented that students
can feel intimidated by or be uncomfortable with computing14. This
can add stress and discomfort to an already stressful subject. These
nature physics
experiences should be acknowledged and support should be provided
so that students can be successful.
At the staff level, instructional staff (undergraduate learning
assistants, graduate teaching assistants and teaching faculty) might
experience similar feelings of anxiety. It is important to support the
learning and growth that the instructional team needs to be successful
in teaching computing.
The physics community has developed several important
resources that can help to alleviate these challenges. A full suite of
open-source teaching materials is available under creative commons
from the Partnership for Integration of Computation into Undergradu-
ate Physics (PICUP), an organization that has been developing fac-
ulty training programmes and computational problem sets for over
15 years. Interested instructors can find (and publish) peer-reviewed
exercise sets across all levels and topics of physics education. Several
computational physics curricula have been researched and developed
over the years, such as the ‘Matter and interactions’ curriculum for
introductory physics.
Computational physics education workshops are also frequently
organized at conferences, such as the American Association of Physics
Teachers summer meeting or the Physics and Astronomy ‘New’ Faculty
Workshop (also known as the Faculty Teaching Institute, currently held
in both the USA and Europe). In addition to these resources, faculty
members can and should take inspiration from their own research.
Bringing in (simplified) questions, ideas, problems or techniques
from one’s own research can be inspiring for students and rewarding
for teachers.
Today, nearly all areas of physics use computing in some way and
these tools are becoming increasingly available to students. Every
day, employers, researchers and educators find new and innovative
ways to use computing in their work. Past students often had to wait
until the end of their bachelor’s degree programme (or even into their
postgraduate studies) to experience physics the way it is done now. We
have a unique opportunity to prepare our students for the complex and
data-rich world that they face.
Marcos D. Caballero1,2 & Tor Ole B. Odden 2
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Computational
Mathematics, Science, and Engineering, CREATE for STEM Institute,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA. 2Department of
Physics and Center for Computing in Science Education, University of
Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
e-mail: caball14@msu.edu; t.o.b.odden@fys.uio.no
Published online: 14 March 2024
References
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5. Initial employment — Physics bachelors and PhDs classes of 2019 and 2020.
American Institute of Physics (1 March 2022); https://www.aip.org/statistics/resources/
initial-employment-physics-bachelors-and-phds-classes-2019-and-2020
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(Publications Office of the European Union, 2022); https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
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11. Caballero, M. D. et al. 2021 PICUP Virtual Capstone Conference Report (PICUP, 2021); 14. Hamerski, P. C., McPadden, D., Caballero, M. D. & Irving, P. W. Students’ perspectives
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