Course Content

The course is taught in conjunction with a MIT course (3.012) on symmetry, structure, energetics and thermodynamics--many of the pedagogical examples of mathematical application will derive from this course. Additionally, this Maths for MSE course must serve as the background for much of the major and therefore the topics are necessarily plentiful and disparate. Just how to compress the mathematical material for a major into a single 8 (3-0-5) unit course¹requires subjectivity and compromise on the part of the instructor in charge. My deliberations and choices were frequented with conflicting themes of rigor/depth and familiarity/breadth. When a choice was necessary, one of breadth over depth was made--I reason that it is possible for a student to go back for depth, but impossible to use an unfamiliar mathematical technique when needful. Nevertheless, the list of topics below probably still do not suffice as a complete set of mathematical topics. However, the list is the best one that I could construct with curricular constraints.