• Congratulations to the Class of 2024 on your results!
    Let us know how you went here
    Got a question about your uni preferences? Ask us here

general UNSW chit-chat (2 Viewers)

dvse

Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2002
Messages
206
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Arnold thinks that it brought about teaching of calculus where neither student nor teacher understand what's going on geometrically and simply apply syntactic rules. PM me if you want an electronic copy.
 
Last edited:

Iruka

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2006
Messages
544
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
What I disliked about it, is that it was basically a grab bag of little tricks and funny polynomials that happen to solve particular differential equations - Legendre polys, Hermite polys, Chebyshev polys, Airy Functions, Bessel Functions, and the list goes on.

Why anyone would actually want to solve any of these DEs was never explained. So most of the material was poorly explained and poorly motivated. However, Omium is a physics student, so he may already know what all that these equations are for.

Whatever I know about phase plane analysis and dynamical systems (not all that much) I've had to pick up by myself.

Note: I did like the stuff about series solutions. That was nice.
 

Uncle

Banned
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
3,265
Location
Retirement Village of Alaska
Gender
Male
HSC
2007
http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jagr/mmde.pdf

Very interesting ways of solving ODEs.
But then I've seen some of it already last year and this year.

$3240!?!?!?! Not worth it at all. I'd choose holidays over study. Seriously doing summer school just doesn't seem to be worth it. If you fail it's a waste of $3240, and then there's the problem of having to do it again when the semester begins again >_>. And lol at ECON1202 I thought that was being scrapped next year for a whole new Commerce degree look.
$3240 per subject?
thats almost as much as i accumulate in HECS debt per semester.
 

Omium

Knuckles
Joined
Feb 7, 2008
Messages
1,738
Location
Physics
Gender
Male
HSC
2007
What I disliked about it, is that it was basically a grab bag of little tricks and funny polynomials that happen to solve particular differential equations - Legendre polys, Hermite polys, Chebyshev polys, Airy Functions, Bessel Functions, and the list goes on.

Why anyone would actually want to solve any of these DEs was never explained. So most of the material was poorly explained and poorly motivated. However, Omium is a physics student, so he may already know what all that these equations are for.
Oh my.

Yes Airy functions are vital in solving the Schroedinger equation.

Hermite, Legendre poly's greatly "simplify" analysis of multielectron atoms.

I know I've seen Bessel and Chebyshev poly's somewhere but i can't remember.
 
Last edited:

_santa

Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2009
Messages
111
Location
/
Gender
Female
HSC
2008
Please tell me, should I do MATH2520 Complex Analysis (3uoc) in first year sem2? (or 2620-the higher version) The pre-req is MATH1231 but maybe I can beg my way in, should I?
 

Iruka

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2006
Messages
544
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Please tell me, should I do MATH2520 Complex Analysis (3uoc) in first year sem2? (or 2620-the higher version) The pre-req is MATH1231 but maybe I can beg my way in, should I?
If they'll let you, why not. Actually, why not see if they will let you into Higher Complex Analysis? I wouldn't bother to accelerate just for the ordinary level course.

You could also consider taking Finite Maths if you have already done Discrete.
 

dvse

Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2002
Messages
206
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Please tell me, should I do MATH2520 Complex Analysis (3uoc) in first year sem2? (or 2620-the higher version) The pre-req is MATH1231 but maybe I can beg my way in, should I?
There is no reason why you can't.

One way to do it is to convince the lecturer to sign waiver of prerequisites form. The best way is probably to get several books and start reading over the break so that you can say something sensible about the subject at that time!

They use this: Amazon.com: Complex Variables and Applications: James Ward Brown, Ruel V. Churchill: Books

and this: Introduction to Complex Analysis


To find all sorts of maths books online without having to go to the library the hint is "djvu".
 

Iruka

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2006
Messages
544
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
There is no reason why you can't.

One way to do it is to convince the lecturer to sign waiver of prerequisites form. The best way is probably to get several books and start reading over the break so that you can say something sensible about the subject at that time!

They use this: Amazon.com: Complex Variables and Applications: James Ward Brown, Ruel V. Churchill: Books

and this: Introduction to Complex Analysis


To find all sorts of maths books online without having to go to the library the hint is "djvu".
All the material in Complex Analysis is covered in the first 7 chapters of that Brown and Churchill book. I thought it was a very good textbook when I did that course.
 

dvse

Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2002
Messages
206
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
All the material in Complex Analysis is covered in the first 7 chapters of that Brown and Churchill book. I thought it was a very good textbook when I did that course.
Completely different material but great book:

Amazon.com: Abel's Theorem in Problems and Solutions: Based on the lectures of Professor V.I. Arnold (the Kluwer International Series in Engineering & Computer Science): V.B. Alekseev, Francesca Aicardi: Books

Self-contained and does a superb job of getting across the idea about unity of mathematics (well, if you exclude logic and statistics and..), something that's pretty hard to see in undergrad. Remember my earlier hint about "djvu"!
 

_santa

Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2009
Messages
111
Location
/
Gender
Female
HSC
2008
If they'll let you, why not. Actually, why not see if they will let you into Higher Complex Analysis? I wouldn't bother to accelerate just for the ordinary level course.

You could also consider taking Finite Maths if you have already done Discrete.
Yeah, I'm doing Finite, that's why I have 3uoc which I don't want to spend on gen eds (since I don't know what to do, and the good ones are unavailable in sem2). I'm hesitating because this (or Higher) will mess up my timetable and I'm sure if it's interesting/useful.

There is no reason why you can't.

One way to do it is to convince the lecturer to sign waiver of prerequisites form. The best way is probably to get several books and start reading over the break so that you can say something sensible about the subject at that time!

They use this: Amazon.com: Complex Variables and Applications: James Ward Brown, Ruel V. Churchill: Books

and this: Introduction to Complex Analysis


To find all sorts of maths books online without having to go to the library the hint is "djvu".
wow thanks for that! I'll try, but I'm afraid I wouldn't get very good marks for maths 1a (shouldn't have slacked off D: ) is it a problem?

'djvu'? u mean deja vu?
 

dvse

Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2002
Messages
206
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
wow thanks for that! I'll try, but I'm afraid I wouldn't get very good marks for maths 1a (shouldn't have slacked off D: ) is it a problem?

'djvu'? u mean deja vu?
Search for '<book name> djvu' in google.
 

karoooh

Active Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
1,338
Gender
Female
HSC
2004
AND Am I the only one with lectures and tutes starting in week 2 and labs starting in week 3, with lectures/tutes/labs continuing until week 13?

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the 13 weeks for me? That makes it 12 weeks anyway? What? Que?
 

uhawww

Flakes
Joined
Sep 2, 2006
Messages
1,380
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2006
I only have one lecture this week, all the rest of my courses start in week 2.


@everyone: PS. don't trust your myunsw timetable, check timetable.unsw.edu.au for when your classes start.
 

wrong_turn

the chosen one
Joined
Sep 18, 2004
Messages
3,664
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2005
Uni Grad
2010
my my.unsw timetable coincided with the timeable website. for a second you almost scared me...
 

Jeee

Banned
Joined
Jul 15, 2009
Messages
705
Location
Displaced
Gender
Female
HSC
2010
I would like to spontaneously add that your law building is so damn funky, I want to go there just for the colour scheme!
Also, who does/has done political science here?
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 2)

Top