Departments of Physics and Computer Science
Editor, American Journal of Physics
Kalamazoo, MI 49006
B.A., Summa Cum Laude, Physics, Amherst College, 1975
Ph.D., Cornell University, Physics, 1980
My research involves using computer simulations to understand a wide variety of systems. At the present time I am mostly involved in developing new models of networks and simulating these models on the computer. These networks may be relevant to social situations. Recently, there has been a fair amount of interest in the universal properties of such networks. I am particularly interested in exploring the phase transition properties of such networks. Frequently, by changing a parameter very slightly, the behavior of a network can change dramatically. In addition I am collaborating on a project to understand the U.S. patent citation network.
Previous research has included simulations of the glass transition, granular matter, diffusion in porous media, lattice models of lipid bilayers, quantum Monte Carlo simulations of disordered superconductors, and two dimensional melting.
Funding for much of this research has come from the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society.
I have been particularly interested in teaching students how to write and use computer simulations to do physics.
My colleague, Harvey Gould at Clark University, and I have written a text on this subject. Along with a new author, Wolfgang Christian of Davidson College, we have published the third edition which uses Java. We have also developed a set of open source Java classes which can be used in conjunction with our text ( open source physics). Check out our simulations in physics web site to find out more. This site also includes links to other relevant sites and information on a column previously edited by Harvey Gould and myself for over 10 years in the journals Computing in Science and Engineering and Computers in Physics.
I am also working on a project originally funded by an NSF grant to improve the teaching of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and statistical physics at the undergraduate level. Harvey Gould and I edited the December 1999 theme issue of the American Journal of Physics on these topics as well as chairing the first Gordon Conference on Physics Research and Education June 11-15, 2000. This conference focused on statistical and thermal physics. The next conference in June 2002 focused on quantum mechanics, the conference in June 2004 focused on classical mechanics and nonlinear dynamics, the conference in June 2006 focused on electrodynamics, and the conference in 2008 will focused on Computational Physics. The next conference in June 2010 will focus on experimental physics. Currently, I am writing Java programs and curricular material for statistical and thermal physics, and finishing up a text on Statistical and Thermal Physics with Harvey Gould, which should be in print sometime in 2009. Our open source physics (OSP) Java programs can be found on comPADRE along with other simulations done by our collaborators in the OSP project.