Numerically Approximating the Wave Equation?

ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "I'm an applied mathematician who has recently needed to obtain good numerical approximations to the classic second-order wave equation, preferably in three space dimensions. A lot of googling has not revealed much on what I had assumed would be a well-studied problem. Most of the standard numerical methods, finite difference/finite element methods, don't seem to work very well in the case of variable wave speed at different points in the domain, which is exactly the case that I need. Are any in this community working on numerically solving wave equation problems? What numerical methods do you use, and which programs do you find best suited to the task? How do you deal with stability issues, boundary/initial values, and other pitfalls? Are there different methods for electromagnetic wave problems? Finally, when the numbers have all been crunched, how do you visualize your hard-earned data?"

Point of Order

[PCM2]

and not make fun of this person for asking a question that has nothing to do with our hobby horses.

Point of order: Is it still OK to make fun of the editors for letting this question through?

I move that the Chair recognize kdawson is an idiot.

wikipedia

[nitroamos]

didja try wikipedia [wikipedia.org]? :-)

ask the experts and not the morons

[dummkopf]

asking such a question on slashdot is a waste of time since most of the answers will be stupid comments... googling for an answer to your problem must have given you some hits. i suggest you google (i) for people studying problems in this field and ask directly. scientists *always* help; at least i have never made any negative experiences. (ii) look for papers at http://scholar.google.com./ [scholar.google.com] i am sure that in one of the CCP conferences (computational physics) these problems must have been discussed by someone. finally: how come slashdot lets such topics trough? i mean, is the news situation that bad right now?

Re:ask the experts and not the morons

[adamkennedy]

> asking such a question on slashdot is a waste of time since most of the answers will be stupid comments... ... with a strong likelyhood of incorrect metaposters not bothering to read the actually helpful comments before theirs and just assuming all slashdot commenters are artards...

Sorry, but....

[markov_chain]

this topic is a breath of fresh air amid the putrid fumes of IT monkey fodder!

Re:What exactly do you do?

[PDAllen]

Yes, it is - but not things that someone else has already figured out. One person proving a theorem is interesting, ten people proving it ten times in different ways (or more likely ten times in basically the same way) isn't. So you ask someone if this useful step you'd like to use has been solved, if yes you read the paper, understand the methods, go on to look at your own problem which has not been solved, solve it.

Re:ask the experts and not the morons

[DoofusOfDeath]

asking such a question on slashdot is a waste of time

I think you're proven wrong by the posts that have been highly rated.

For many of us, hating MPAA/RIAA/M$ is just a hobby. We do actually have varied day jobs you know.

Re:usenet

[bigpat]

Mathematician here, though this isn't my field. Slashdot isn't a very good place to ask this kind of question, since there aren't many mathematicians on here, and it's a very broad topic. I suggest Usenet -- specificially the sci.math newsgroup. I know at least 50 mathematicians who post regularly, and a lot more lurk (and occassionally answer questions).

I think that is probably an inaccurate statement. I am guessing there are more than 50 mathematicians that read Slashdot. Problem is not quantity, it is sifting through the jokes and the offtopic posts, and the helpful suggestions to look elsewhere :) before you get to the guy that actually knows what you are asking and might have an idea of what you want.