Contents of the lecture

Random numbers with non uniform distributions; simulations of simple random processes

- Random numbers with non uniform distributions: inverse transform method; acceptance-rejection method to generate non uniform random variates; alternative algorithms for particular distributions.

- Simple random processes: Numerical simulation of radioactive decay

- Data plotting: normal plot and log-log or semilog plots; data fitting: least-square fit, linear regression 

- Recommended:

- See "A Survey of Computational Physics: Introductory Computational Science" by Rubin H. Landau, Manuel Jose Paez and Cristian C. Bordeianu (2008), Princeton University Press, or the older "Computational Physics" by Landau and Paez (1997)

- Some notes on radioactive decay simulation by the same author (R.H. Landau) on the Web

- Chapter 7 (Random Processes) of "Computer simulation Methods: application to Physical Systems", by H. Gould and J. Tobochnik, Addison Wesley" also some programs (http://physics.clarku.edu/sip/programs/);