Learn Physics with Functional Programming: A Hands-on Guide to Exploring Physics with Haskell

What can a program reveal about a physical law? In Learn Physics with Functional Programming, Scott N. Walck brings those questions together through Haskell, using functional programming to represent mathematical ideas and investigate physical systems. The result is a hands-on exploration of computational physics in which the code is part of the reasoning, not just a way to get an answer.

Represent the mathematics, then put it to work

The book develops tools for working with vectors, derivatives, integrals, scalar and vector fields, and differential equations. These ideas provide a foundation for expressing familiar physical principles in a functional language, making the relationship between mathematical structure and program structure part of the learning.

From Newtonian mechanics to electromagnetic theory

Walck explores topics including Newton’s second law, Coulomb’s law, the Biot–Savart law, and Maxwell’s equations. Haskell’s type system helps express and check the logic of these formulations, offering readers a way to examine how physical concepts can be encoded precisely.

Explore physical systems computationally 💻

Numerical integration and approximation methods, including the Euler method and the finite-difference time-domain method, extend the discussion from equations to computation. The book also uses graphs, models, and animations to examine scenarios such as colliding billiard balls, waves on a guitar string, and a proton in a magnetic field.

A meeting point for physics and Haskell

Examples and exercises give the book its practical character. It may appeal to physics students, computational physics learners, and Haskell programmers curious about applying functional programming to scientific ideas. Readers interested in both physics and programming will find a distinctive approach: learning each subject through the careful work of connecting them.