Teaching WK
From Werner KRAUTH
For many years already, I have been involved with teaching of physics. Presently, I concentrate on MOOC teaching, and on a course on statistical physics within the master ENS-ICFP at ENS. I also frequently teach in summer schools.
BegRohu Lectures 2024
My 2024 Lectures at the Beg Rohu Summer school run from 04 June 2024 through 14 June 2024. Click here for sample programs and other material
Oxford Lectures 2024
My 2024 Public Lectures at the University of Oxford (UK) run from 16 January 2024 through 5 March 2024. Click here for lecture notes and other material
King's College 2022: Markov-chain Monte Carlo: A modern primer
This is the title of a Masterclass that I gave from 28 February through 3 March 2022 at the Faculty of Natural & Mathematical Sciences at King's College London (Great Britain). The Masterclass was organized into six separate lectures that treated everything from the foundations of MCMC (Markov-chain Monte Carlo) to modern lifted Markov chains, the concepts of perfect sampling (with practical applications), meta algorithms and, to wrap up: consensus sampling. The wonderful week at King's and in central London was my first physics trip since February 2020. While at King's College London, I also gave a talk Fast non-reversible Markov chains in statistical physics, that included some of our most recent work.
2022 Lectures at the International Center for Theoretical Physics
On September 5-8, 2022, I gave a series of four lectures on modern concepts in Markov-chain Monte Carlo at the ICTP in Trieste (Italy). I discussed a host of algorithms, such as reversible and non-reversible Markov chains, Markov chains for hard-sphere systems, perfect sampling, and the concept of meta algorithms. Some of the algorithms (in Python) can be found here.
ICFP Master 2019, Course on Statistical Physics
see this page for tutorials and homeworks, syllabus, and lecture notes.
ICFP Master 2019, Library-based Projects
see this page for instructions and information. Note that around Sep 3 - 13, 2019, students interested in doing a library-based project should have contacted me by mail.
ICFP Master 2018, Course on Statistical Physics
see this page for tutorials and homework, syllabus, lecture notes and material.
ICFP Master 2018, Library-based project
see this page for material on this project that is now completed.
Tokyo Lectures 2017
see this page for information on this lecture series.
Hong Kong lectures 2017
see this page for a short summary of this 8 hour course.
Trieste Lectures 2015, Bad Honnef Lectures 2015
see this page for slides and Python programs. The exercise session is captured in two photographs.
Third MOOC Statistical Mechanics: Algorithms and Computations - Now self-paced
The 3rd edition of the Massive open online course (MOOC) on Coursera: Statistical Mechanics: Algorithms and Computations has started on February 29, 2016 (participation is free of charge, and open to everyone). The first edition of the MOOC, in 2014, drew 30,000 registered students from 160 countries. Videos were viewed 250,000 times, there were close to 6000 forum posts, and students had a great time. Look here for an editorial that I wrote after 'coming home from a MOOC'.
The 3rd edition of SMAC comes with two major changes:
- Statistical Mechanics: Algorithms and Computations is now a self-paced course, just like all other courses on Coursera. I will be curious to see how it will turn out, especially whether the individual pace still allows some kind of group experience. In any case, we put in a lot of effort to make our popular course accessible to an even larger community of students. We will continue to be very present on the forum! So let's all have fun with the third edition of SMAC.
- There will be no more certificate, as ENS was unable to keep the certificate free of charge.
Second MOOC edition started on 2 February 2015 - now finished
The 2nd edition of the Massive open online course (MOOC) on Coursera: Statistical Mechanics: Algorithms and Computations started on February 2nd, 2015 (participation if free of charge, and open to everyone). The first edition of the MOOC, in 2014, drew 30,000 registered students from 160 countries. Videos were viewed 250,000 times, there were close to 6000 forum posts, and students had a great time. Look here for an editorial that I wrote after 'coming home from a MOOC'.
Lectures 2013/14
In 2013/14, I taught a second-year Master course (fifth year counting from high-school) at Ecole normale supérieure. Subjects go from Monte Carlo algorithms to bosons, fermions, classical spins, quantum spins, Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chains, the thirteen-sphere problem, and many more. I was helped by my colleagues Alberto Rosso and Vivien Lecomte, and we are having a lot of fun (and a bit of work also)! Our approach to teaching is the fruit of a lot of experiments. Lectures were on the blackboard, training sessions use the computer a lot. Then there was homework where students are asked to program more or less complicated, but always interesting subjects in the Python programming language.
Vivien Lecomte (9th from the right) and Alberto Rosso (8th), at the conf IV lecture room at ENS.
