About OSP


 

This java archive (jar file) contains ready-to-run programs in support of a set of curricular materials for the teaching of single measurements of spin-1/2 systems in quantum mechanics.  The Open Source Physics: A Users Guide with Examples by W. Christian (Addison Wesley 2007) provides a description of these programs and the entire Open Source Physics (OSP) project.

The Open Source Physics (OSP) project seeks to create and distribute curricular material for physics computation and physics education at all levels.
 

Description and Motivation

The continued use of procedural languages in education is due, in part, to the lack of up-to-date curricular materials that combine science topics with an object-oriented programming framework. Although there are many resources for teaching computational physics, few are object-oriented. What is needed by the broader science education community is not another computational physics, numerical analysis, or Java programming book (although such books are essential for discipline-specific practitioners), but a synthesis of curriculum development, computational physics, computer science, and physics education that will be useful for scientists and students wishing to write their own simulations and develop their own curricular material. The Open Source Physics (OSP) project was established to meet this need. OSP is an NSF-funded curriculum development project that is developing and distributing a code library, programs, and examples of computer-based interactive curricular material.


The OSP website contains examples of Open Source Physics Curricular material and demonstrations of how the OSP code library is used. 
 

http://www.opensourcephysics.org


The OSP Developer website contains technical descriptions and examples of Open Source Physics Curricular material and demonstrations of how the OSP code library is used.

http://www.opensourcephysics.org/developer

Support

The Open Source Physics project is supported in part by the National Science Foundation grants DUE-0126439 and DUE-0442481. These grants have helped us to write books, to provide workshops at professional meetings, and to develop Open Source Physics curricular materials for distribution on the Internet.


Davidson College has supported the Open Source Physics project in many ways, including the hosting of the Open Source Physics Web server. The Open Source Physics project would not be possible without this generous support.

 

License

The Open Source Physics code library and programs described in Open Source Physics: A Users Guide with Examples are being distributed by the Open Source Physics project under the GNU General Public License.  A copy of this License is included on the OSP CD. If this CD is not available, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston MA 02111-1307 USA or view the license online at

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.