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

Thierry Dauxois·Michel Peyrard·Stefano Ruffo
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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.

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Thierry Dauxois, Michel Peyrard, Stefano Ruffo. 2005-03-22. The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam "numerical experiment": history and pedagogical perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1088/0143-0807%2F26%2F5%2Fs01

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