This module intends to provide the most basic concepts of high performance computing used for modeling purposes. It also aims at teaching the basics of Python 3 which will be the programming language used for the quizzes in this course.

Dynamical systems modeling is the principal method developed to study time-space dependent problems. It aims at translating a natural phenomenon into a mathematical set of equations. Once this basic step is performed the principal obstacle is the actual resolution of the obtained mathematical problem. Usually these equations do not possess an analytical solution and advanced numerical methods must be applied to solve them. In this module you will learn the basics of how to write mathematical equations representing natural phenomena and then how to numerically solve them.

This module defines the concept of cellular automata by outlining the basic building blocks of this method. Then an insight of how to apply this technique to natural phenomena is given. Finally the lattice gas automata, a subclass of models used for fluid flows, is presented.

This module provides an introduction to the lattice Boltzmann method, a powerful tool in computational fluid dynamics. The lesson is practice oriented and show, step by step, how to write a program for the lattice Boltzmann method. The program is used to showcase an interesting problem in fluid dynamics, the simulation of a vortex street behind an obstacle.

A short review of classical mechanics, and of numerical methods used to integrate the equations of motions for many interacting particles is presented. The student will learn that the computational expense of resolving all interaction between particles poses a major obstacle to simulating such a system. Specific algorithms are presented to allow to cut down on computational expense, both for short-range and large-range forces. The module focuses in detail on the Barnes-Hut algorithm, a tree algorithm which is popular a popular approach to solve the N-Body problem.

In this module, we will see an alternative approach to model systems which display a trivial behaviour most of the time, but which may change significantly under a sequence of discrete events. Initially developed to simulate queue theory systems (such as consumer waiting queue), the Discrete Event approach has been apply to a large variety of problems, such as traffic intersection modeling or volcanic hazard predictions.

Agent Based Models (ABM) are used to model a complex system by decomposing it in small entities (agents) and by focusing on the relations between agents and with the environment. This approach is derived from artificial intelligence research and is currently used to model various systems such as pedestrian behaviour, social insects, biological cells, etc.