On Mar 21, 2011, at 12:46 PM, Brian Granger wrote: > Matthew, > > Welcome! > >> I'm a PhD student studying Computer Science at the University of >> Chicago with a background in Physics and Mathematics. I'm a heavy user >> of Python and its open source developments but have never contributed >> more than bug reports. I code a fair amount but it's all research- >> grade and not suitable for public use. My goal for this project would >> be to focus on crafting code and a clear end-user experience rather >> than focusing on a scientific research question. I would also like to >> engage and join the Python community a bit; I've always been "just an >> end-user." > > Sounds great. You have a solid background and should be able to come > up with a good proposal. > >> I'm searching for an appropriate project for a summer. I'm looking >> over the provided list and at the existing functionality in SymPy. I >> have a few ideas but I'd appreciate suggestions. >> >> My interests include the following: Scientific Computing (generally), >> Numerical Linear Algebra, Physics (generally), Geometry/Relativity, >> Dynamical Systems, Statistics (generally), Uncertainty/Sensitivity, >> Optimization, Education. > > I am mostly involved in the quantum/physics side of things. I can let > you know what is going on in that area and others can fill in the > other stuff. > >> Thoughts: >> My ideal project would be to develop a code-base for General >> Relativity. However I see that someone else already has some code that >> they're thinking of contributing. Would it be best to wait on this? > > Possibly, but not necessarily. There is probably a ton to do and you > may want to ping the person working on that. > >> Are there supporting aspects of this topic that I could help with >> (reworking tensors for example). Relevant thread here: http://goo.gl/zRmDs >> I could probably improve sympy Matrices. I'm curious, how many people >> use the existing functionality? What are common applications for >> symbolic matrices? If I go this route I want to make sure that there >> are some good motivating use cases. I wonder if something akin to >> numpy's ndarray would be appropriate to merge both this and the above >> topic. A lot of functionality is shared and currently (I think) >> codeveloped in both branches. > > One thing that is definitely needed is to make Matrix a regular sympy > object (that inherits from Basic). The main issue is that currently > all sympy objects are immutable, but Matrices are not. We probably > need to create new classes MutableBasic and ImmutableBasic and derive > Matrix from MutableBasic. BUT, this will require a ton of work on the > core because throughout the entire code base, it is assumed that > objects are immutable.
I think a better idea would be to create an ImmutableMatrix class. Making a mutable core would be a *huge* project. That alone would make a GSoC project, without any consideration at all for making it work with matrices. Aaron Meurer > >> Brian Granger's quantum physics projects seem appropriate. > > Yes, have you checked out the sympy GSoC ideas for 2011: > > https://github.com/sympy/sympy/wiki/GSoC-2011-Ideas > > The Physics topics there are mostly up to date. Let me know if there > are particular physics topics you are interested in and we an discuss > the details. > >> I'm also tangentially interested in code generation. Any suggestions >> on this front? >> Anyone have thoughts for applications in education? Something like >> sympy might aid significantly in learning calculus for example. > > One of the main motivations of the quantum stuff is for education. > One very interesting project would be to go through and implement all > the textbook quantum systems in sympy.physics.quantum. This would > related to the work on the position and momentum bases. > > Cheers, > > Brian > >> Can anyone think of projects that would be appropriate for someone of >> my background that haven't yet been added to the ideas list? >> >> Thanks all for your time and input, >> -Matt >> http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~mrocklin >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "sympy" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en. >> >> > > > > -- > Brian E. Granger, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor of Physics > Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo > [email protected] > [email protected] > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sympy" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en.
