English

The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam "numerical experiment": history and pedagogical perspectives

Pattern Formation and Solitons 2009-11-11 v2 Chaotic Dynamics

Abstract

The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) pioneering numerical experiment played a major role in the history of computer simulation because it introduced this concept for the first time. Moreover, it raised a puzzling question which was answered more than 10 years later. After an introduction to this problem, we briefly review its history and then suggest some simple numerical experiments, with a provided Matlab code, to study various aspects of the ``FPU'' problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.nlin/0501053,
  title  = {The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam "numerical experiment": history and pedagogical perspectives},
  author = {Thierry Dauxois and Michel Peyrard and Stefano Ruffo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0501053},
  year   = {2009}
}