About the course

This course was originally written by Thomas Robitaille, and was carefully adapted by Markus Demleitner and myself.

The web page for this course is [http://wwwstaff.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/rschmidt/pycourse/].

The lecturer is Robert Schmidt. You can contact me during the course and at rschmidt@uni-heidelberg.de

Topics

  • Using the IPython Notebook
  • Introduction to Python
  • Modules and Functions
  • Introduction to Numpy and Matplotlib
  • Reading/writing data from files
  • Introduction to Scipy (interpolation, integration, fitting)
  • Applying Python to scientific problems
  • Object-oriented programming

Structure

The block course lasts five days, and each day will follow this schedule:

  • 9:00-10:30 - lecture/exercises
  • 10:30-11:00 - break
  • 11:00-12:30 - lecture/exercises
  • 12:30-13:30 - break for lunch
  • 13:30-14:30 - lecture/exercises
  • 14:30-17:00 - computer pool available to finish homework

The lectures will be mixed with exercise sessions - from time to time I will give you 5 or 10 minutes to complete a given task/exercise. There will be problem sets during the week, and you will be required to hand these in a deadline indicated on the problem sheet. An average of 60% [=54 points] in the problem sets will be required to obtain 2 credits points at the end of the course.

The course will be in English or German as convenient.

I am happy to review or talk about your code/solutions to exercises.

Solutions to problem sheets

All solutions should be submitted as IPython (/Jupyter) notebooks or python programs (one notebook/program per problem set).

-> Please use a filename that contains the name of the problem sheet and your name.

-> Only submit the program (.py or .ipynb), do not submit data downloaded from the course web page.

Submissions have to be entered in the uebungen system.

The following criteria are taken into account for grading problem sets - the notebook/program should:

  • run with no errors under python3
  • produce the correct results
  • be clearly readable, and include text to explain what you are doing and why
  • not include any unused code! (-> readability)

Please make use of the ability to add comments and text around your code. Make it so that someone not familiar with the problem could read it and understand your solution.

There is never a unique solution to a problem, so it does not matter if your programs do not look the same as somebody else's! What matters most is that you get a chance to make mistakes and learn from them.

Policy on handing in solutions

Problem set submissions need to be handed in separately for each participant.

The deadlines for the Problem Sets are:

Problem Set 1 Thursday, October 10th 2024, 7pm CEST

Problem Set 2 Thursday, October 17th 2024, 7pm CEST

Problem Set 3 Thursday, October 24th 2024, 7pm CEST

Your own python installation on your Laptop

The default is to use the jupyter server (see below), but if you would like to use Python on your laptop, you have several possibilities:

  • If you have a linux laptop and are familiar with package managers, most major scientific Python packages are available through these
  • Otherwise, try and install the Anaconda Python distribution

Getting set up

CIP Pool, the jupyter server and the Lecture Notes

Please choose the 'thinclient' option. This opens a very basic client server that will run a browser for you. It is all you need for this course.

The default is to point the browser to the server https://jupyter.kip.uni-heidelberg.de for this course.

But there are also identical machines jupyter2 and jupyter3 to be used [e.g., in case of overcrowding].

Please login to one of these three machines.

You can download the notebooks I'm showing, the problem sets and the ancillary data files from the course web page here

The simplest way to upload the files to the jupyter server is the following:

  • copy link location (using the "right" mouse button)
  • then open a terminal on the jupyter server using "New" -> "Terminal" (top right next to "Upload")
  • type: wget [paste link location here]
  • using the browser, go back to the tab with the jupyter Home directory ("Home")

The file should now be visible in the Home directory.

In the same directory you also find the 'data' directory. The contains material that will be used in this course. In case you used your account before, this may also be called 'data2'. You can ask me if you want to rename this.