- Course Code
- MA 1502
- Credit Points
- 20
- Course Coordinator
- Professor M Weiss
Pre-requisites
SCE H or GCE A level in Mathematics.
Overview
The standard numbers and their properties underline most mathematics. To improve understanding and breadth of applications, we need to develop another number system (complex numbers) and techniques to handle rectangular blocks of numbers (matrices and vectors). One can add or subtract matrices of the same size and multiply them by a single number. One can sometimes multiply matrices together using what initially seems a very strange procedure and if a matrix is square, we can try and find another matrix, called an inverse, such that the product of the two gives a simple "identity" matrix. Matrices have many uses in mathematics and its applications and the reasons for the strange way in which matrices are multiplied and why one seeks an inverse are dictated by the applications. We need also to develop methods of solving equations in these contexts.
This course includes ideas from discrete mathematics, including the key concept of induction and some elementary probability theory.
Structure
12 week course - 4 lectures and 1 tutorial per week.
Assessment
1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination paper (70%) and in-course assessment (30%).
Resit: 1 two-hour written examination paper (maximum of 100% resit and 70% resit with 30% in-course assessment).