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general UNSW chit-chat (4 Viewers)

dvse

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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.
 
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Iruka

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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

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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

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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.
 
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_santa

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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my my.unsw timetable coincided with the timeable website. for a second you almost scared me...
 

Jeee

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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?
 

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