Week 0: Introduction

Hello everyone! This is my first senior project blog post. Today, I will be discussing the basics of my project, an open source program for simulating electromagnetic fields. I will be working on this project in the next couple of months, so watch out!

Throughout my years studying CS and physics, I’ve always been particularly interested in computational physics, or the application of computer algorithms to analyze the behavior of physical systems. Moreover, my favorite topic in physics has always been classical electrodynamics, which is governed ultimately by Maxwell’s equations. This set of differential equations is both elegant and powerfully predictive, allowing for an explanation of phenomena ranging from diamagnetism to EM waves to polarization in charged molecules. 

With the rising need for innovation in computing and communications hardware, engineers and designers have an urgent need to simulate the electromagnetic fields produced by prototyped systems in order to properly design efficient and safe hardware. Because most electromagnetic field simulation software is proprietary and expensive, this puts independent tinkerers at a disadvantage. My software will aim to provide every curious-minded person with the resources to develop an understanding of EM fields.

To start my project, I plan on doing two weeks of research to review my knowledge of classical electrodynamics and determine the tools and methods that I need to understand in order to build the software. From there, I will then begin to plan out the general structure of my software and the individual components. I already have a general idea of what I need, for instance a solver algorithm and a workable user interface. I’ll start coding after I plan sufficiently. In the months that I have, I aim to complete, test, and optimize my software to produce a fully working EM field simulator in C++. 

For curious minded people who want to learn about EM fields and even tinker around with circuits and charge setups, the options for EM field simulation are severely limited, with the playing field dominated by overpriced proprietary software. I plan on producing a workable open source alternative that allows anyone motivated enough to pursue their interests in physics. If you want to keep reading, see you people next week.