260072 VU Data Science for Physicists (2021S)

The course focuses on the application of Data Science methods in Physics, that is the combination of interdisciplinary activities (such as scientific, statistical and computational tools) required to elaborate data-centered analysis on relevant physical quantities. Data Science is a topic of increasing interest in the scientific community, due to the growing power of modern computational machines and the associated creation of large databases: The valuable information stored in such large databases can be extracted by Data Science methods, i.e., by combining statistics with advanced computational methods, including machine learning.

This course aims to guide students through the basic theoretical concepts regarding Data Science in Physics, and to provide them with the ability to successfully face practical applications in this field. Specifically, the lectures cover the following topics: (i) collection and manipulation of data via computational tools (mostly in python environments), (ii) effective visualization of relevant information extracted from data, (iii) scientific analysis and physical interpretation of data, (iv) advanced computational techniques.

The course is structured in theoretical lectures (on Thursdays), followed by practical lectures (on Tuesdays).