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Here I list interesting science related links, as well as links to scientific tools useful in computational science.

Popular Science

muniverseThe Mechanical Universe and Beyond
This is a very good series on physics that I first saw in my high school physics class. It explains things very nicely with some history added in to keep it interesting. The episodes on relativity and quantum mechanics are extremely good at explaining these topics using animations. A must watch! The episodes are FREE to stream online in you register at the site for free.


CatseyeAstronomy Picture of the Day
This site displays a new Astronomy picture every day with an explanation of whats in the picture, including external links to learn more.
It is a very handy site if you want to change the wallpaper of your computer with something new and nice looking every day!


brainpop_logoBrainPop
This site is a great site to teach kids (and adults) all about basic Science, Math, as well as other topics.
Although to view all the lessons, you have to pay, there are more than a few for free!



Tools for Computational Science

Departments/Originizations

CSRC at SDSUCSRC: Computational Science Research Center at SDSU





Computational Software Tools

MATLAB - An extremely useful computational software.
Dfield and Pplane - Very useful free java applet/MATLAB code to study ODE dynamics.
CUDA - NVIDIA's GPU API - great way to speed up code cheaply using graphics cards.
MAPLE - Symbolic and numerical math software.
Mathimatica
- Symbolic and numerical math software.
IDL - MATLAB style software with good visuals.
Scientific Workplace - LATEX WYSIWYG with symbolic math using MuPad attached.
Cygwin - A Linux-like environment for Windows, includes free X-windows and code compilers.  
G95 - Free Windows FORTRAN 95 compiler for use with Cygwin.
MPICH2 - Free Windows MPI C/FORTRAN compiler that works with Cygwin.
Dplot - Cheap plotting software for visualizing externally outputted data sets.
WolframAlpha - Free online search that computes math with Mathimatica.
OpenDX - Free high-quality data visualization software.
Crimson Editor - Free text editor for Windows.  Much better than notepad/wordpad.
Jedit - Free text editor specifically designed for writing code.  Can install free add-ons like sftp integration etc.
JGRASP - Free JAVA development platform.
SSH Secure Shell - Freeware SSH and SFTP client.  Since it is hard to find at the official site, the link goes to my install file.
Visual Studio Express - Free version of Microsoft C++ etc. compilers.
7-Zip - Free unzipping tool for Windows which can handle gz and tar files.


Manuscript/Presentation Tools

MIKTEX/LATEX - THE standard scripting language for scientific publications.  Miktex is for Windows, Latex for Linux.
Winshell - Free tool to develop Latex documents on Windows
Aurora - $35 Latex add-on for MS Word and Powerpoint.  Very useful for presentations.
eps2pdf - Free tool that is in windows (included in ghost script?) to convert a eps or ps image to a pdf. (Run in command prompt)
PDFSam - Free tool to split and merge pdfs (very useful for signature pages)
ConvertMyPDF - Free tool to convert a pdf into txt, doc, jpg, or html
Ghostscript/GSview - Free pdf/eps viewer and converter.
GIMP - Free image editor, OK alternative to photoshop/psp.
Kompozer - A freeware WYSIWYG HTML editor which produces very clean code.
Oxelon Audio and Video Converter - The BEST freeware video/audio converter I have found.



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