Introduction to Computational Physics and Data Analysis

This course introduces upper undergraduate and graduate students to computational methods in physics and data analysis techniques. It covers programming in Python and Mathematica, computational physics fundamentals, and fundamental data analysis methods including statistics, data fitting, and background estimation. The course will use the discovery of the Higgs boson as a case study. Students will engage in practical assignments and a final project to apply learned concepts. Extensive use of Google Colab and Mathematica notebooks will be made to facilitate learning and application. Students are encouraged to bring their laptops to the lectures to perform the examples with the instructor.