Electricity and Magnetism Simulations: The Consortium for Upper-Level Physics Software
M. J. M. Leask · European Journal of Physics · 1996
ISBN: 0 471 54880 4 This book-plus-software package is one of nine course modules produced under the CUPS (Consortium for Upper-Level Physics) Programme, and is aimed at the Junior and Senior years at US universities. The minimum hardware requirements are modest (386, math coprocessor, mouse) and all of the dozen or so programs ran well on a 33 MHz 486. Users are encouraged to try program modifications - all the code is written in Borland/Turbo Pascal - but the default settings allow a lot of trial and error experimentation. Is it useful? Certainly. Will it revolutionize the way we teach undergraduates? Not yet. But the package is just one strand of a major effort in this direction. All university teachers will want to see the whole series, and there is plenty of food for thought here.