Question

I took a scientific programming course this semester that I really enjoyed and experimented with a lot. We used python, and all the related modules. I am taking a physics lab next semester and I just wanted to hear from some of you how python can help me in ways that excel can t or in ways that are better than excel s capabilities. I use Mathematica for symbolic stuff so I would use python for data purposes.

Off the top of my head, here are the related things I can do:

All of the things you would expect in a intro course (loops, arrays, slicing arrays, etc).
Reading data from a text file.
Plotting scatter, line, and bar graphs.
Learning how to plot linear regression but haven t totally figured it out.
I have done 7 of the problems on Project Euler (nothing to brag about, but it might give you a better idea of where I stand in skills).

Looking forward to hearing from some of you. You don t have to explain how to use the things you mention, I could look up the documentation.

Answer 1

The paper Python all a scientist needs comes to mind. I hope you can make the needed transformations from Biology to Physics.

Answer 2

Scipy will also be useful to you, as it includes many more advanced analysis tools. For example, Scipy includes a linear regression, and gets more interesting from there. Along with the other tools you mentioned, you ll probably find most of your needs covered.

Other notes on tool selection:

Mathematica is a great tool, if you can afford it. I ve played around with the other options, like Sympy, and sadly, they don t come close to being as useful as Mathematica.
I can t imagine using Excel for any serious scientific work. If you re planning to continue forward using the tools that you learn in class, you might as well start with tools that offer you that potential.

Answer 3

Don t reject Excel outright. It s still great for doing simple data analysis and plotting. Excel also has the considerable advantage of being installed on most engineer and scientist s computers, making it a lot easier to share your work with colleagues.

That said, I do use Python when Excel just won t cut it; times when I ve had to:

color the points in a scatter plot based on a third column
plot a field of vectors
extract a few values from each of several thousand data files to do statistical process control
generate dozens of scatter plots over different dimensions of a large data set to find which variables are important
solve a nonlinear equation at several intermediate points of a calculation, not just as the final result.
accept variable length input from a user to define a problem

VBA in Excel can do a lot of those things too, but it becomes painful fast in such a primitive language. I dream that Microsoft will make IronPython a first-class scripting language in the next version of Excel. Until then, you might want to try Resolver One

Answer 4

I can recall 2 presentations by Jan Martinek on EuroScipy 2008, he s PhD candidate and presented some fun experiments with Physics in the background. Abstracts are here and I m sure he would t mind to share more if you contact him directly. Also, take a look at other presentation from EuroScipy, there are some more Physics-related ones.

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