Learn Physics with Functional Programming: A Hands-on Guide to Exploring Physics with Haskell

876 Pages·2023·19.885 MB·English

by  Scott N. Walck

LEARN PHYSICS WITH FUNCTIONAL
PROGRAMMING
A Hands-on Guide to Exploring Physics with
Haskell
by Scott N. Walck
San Francisco
LEARN PHYSICS WITH FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING. Copyright
© 2023 by Scott N. Walck.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior
written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
First printing
26 25 24 23 22                1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-1-7185-0166-9 (print)
ISBN-13: 978-1-7185-0167-6 (ebook)
Publisher: William Pollock
Managing Editor: Jill Franklin
Production Manager: Sabrina Plomitallo-González
Production Editor: Miles Bond
Developmental Editor: Alex Freed
Cover Illustrator: Gina Redman
Interior Design: Octopod Studios
Technical Reviewer: Gregory Wright
Copyeditor: George Hale
Proofreader: Bart Reed
Indexer: Sanjiv Kumar Sinha
For information on distribution, bulk sales, corporate sales, or translations, please
contact No Starch Press, Inc.
directly at [email protected] or:
No Starch Press, Inc.
245 8th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
phone: [phone]
www.nostarch.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walck, Scott N., author.
Title: Learn physics with functional programming : a hands-on guide to exploring
physics with Haskell / by Scott N. Walck.
Description: San Francisco : No Starch Press, [2023] — Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022018706 (print) — LCCN 2022018707 (ebook) — ISBN
9781718501669 (print) — ISBN 9781718501676 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Physics–Data processing. — Functional programming (Computer
science)
Classification: LCC QC52 .W34 2023 (print) — LCC QC52 (ebook) — DDC
530.0285/5133–dc23/eng20220722
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022018706
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022018707
No Starch Press and the NoStarch Press logo are registered trademarks of No
Starch Press, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be
the trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than use a trademark symbol
with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we are using the names only in an
editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of
infringement of the trademark.
The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis, without warranty.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither
the author nor No Starch Press, Inc. shall have any liability to any person or
entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly
or indirectly by the information contained in it.
To Peggy, Carl, Dan, and Jodi
About the Author
Scott N. Walck has a PhD in physics from Lehigh University. He has
taught physics, including computational physics, to undergraduates
(physics majors and non-majors) for 20 years at Lebanon Valley
College, where he has been recognized with a Distinguished Teaching
Award. Walck is a three-time NSF grant recipient for research in
quantum information and is the author of more than 30 peer-reviewed
research articles in physics.
About the Technical Reviewer
Gregory Wright received his PhD in physics from Princeton
University, where he built receivers for studying cosmic microwave
background radiation. He did postdoctoral studies at Bell Laboratories
and was later hired as a Member of Technical Staff there. He was
introduced to Haskell when he was a Visiting Industrial Fellow at the
University of California’s Berkeley Wireless Research Center, where he
used it to model wireless communication systems. For many years he
maintained MacPort’s version of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler
(GHC) and contributed to porting GHC to the AMD64 architecture
on both macOS and FreeBSD. He was (probably) the first person to
build GHC from source on the continent of Antarctica and encourages
others to build their tools from source.
BRIEF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: A HASKELL PRIMER FOR PHYSICISTS
Chapter 1: Calculating with Haskell
Chapter 2: Writing Basic Functions
Chapter 3: Types and Entities
Chapter 4: Describing Motion
Chapter 5: Working with Lists
Chapter 6: Higher-Order Functions
Chapter 7: Graphing Functions
Chapter 8: Type Classes
Chapter 9: Tuples and Type Constructors
Chapter 10: Describing Motion in Three Dimensions
Chapter 11: Creating Graphs
Chapter 12: Creating Stand-Alone Programs
Chapter 13: Creating 2D and 3D Animations
PART II: EXPRESSING NEWTONIAN MECHANICS AND
SOLVING PROBLEMS
Chapter 14: Newton’s Second Law and Differential Equations
Chapter 15: Mechanics in One Dimension
Chapter 16: Mechanics in Three Dimensions
Chapter 17: Satellite, Projectile, and Proton Motion
Chapter 18: A Very Short Primer on Relativity
Chapter 19: Interacting Particles
Chapter 20: Springs, Billiard Balls, and a Guitar String
PART III: EXPRESSING ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY
AND SOLVING PROBLEMS
Chapter 21: Electricity
Chapter 22: Coordinate Systems and Fields
Chapter 23: Curves, Surfaces, and Volumes
Chapter 24: Electric Charge
Chapter 25: Electric Field
Chapter 26: Electric Current
Chapter 27: Magnetic Field
Chapter 28: The Lorentz Force Law
Chapter 29: The Maxwell Equations
Appendix: Installing Haskell
Bibliography
Index
CONTENTS IN DETAIL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Who This Book Is For
Why Functional Programming, and Why Haskell?
About This Book
PART I
A HASKELL PRIMER FOR PHYSICISTS
1
CALCULATING WITH HASKELL
A Kinematics Problem
The Interactive Compiler
Numeric Functions
Operators
Precedence and Associativity
The Application Operator
Functions with Two Arguments
Numbers in Haskell
Negative Numbers in Haskell
Decimal Numbers in Haskell
Exponential Notation
Approximate Calculation
Errors
Getting Help and Quitting
More Information
Summary
Exercises