Maths is a wonderful thing (1 Viewer)

[Peeik]

Haha, maybe. Discrete math was one of my favorite subjects last semester, although I didn't attend most of the lectures/tutorials (bad timetable, would have had several 2-3 hour breaks).

The class was pretty good when I was there, and Molev was definitely more engaging than most of the lecturers I've had.

Gotta love molev and his accent.

 

[Obvious]

Hmmm... the MATH2962 lecture notes are only ~150 pages long whereas the ones for MATH2961 are almost twice that. What's up with this?

 

[seanieg89]

Hmmm... the MATH2962 lecture notes are only ~150 pages long whereas the ones for MATH2961 are almost twice that. What's up with this?

Probably just a difference in how verbose the author wanted to be in his explanations. Don't fall into the trap of judging difficulty and size of content by length.

 

[Carrotsticks]

Hmmm... the MATH2962 lecture notes are only ~150 pages long whereas the ones for MATH2961 are almost twice that. What's up with this?

2962 had less content than 2961, but it went into a lot more detail with the theorems and proofs.

 

[Nick_K]

OP don't waste you're time with James Stewart- get your hands on Calculus by Michael Spivak and that will be more than enough preparation for 2962 (this covers more than the advanced first year calc units). If you can't get spivak then I've heard Apostol and Courant have both written good books on the subject.

For Linear Algebra you don't really need the background because it moves onto abstract stuff which is completely different to the first year work. But if you really want to study something I'd have a look at Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler which will give you a head start on 2961. This book doesn't assume any prior knowledge.

As said above baby rudin is excellent for intoductory analysis but I think it's a bit above 2962 (Rudin covers metric spaces wheras 2962 apparantly only deals with Euclidean spaces).

I think the best thing to make your transition to rigorous mathematics less traumatic is to get a book on proof writing. I found "How to Prove It: A Structured Approach" by Velleman to be very helpful but I'm sure there are many similar books that would do the trick.

 

[Peter-PF7]

Guys please help me with choosing my preferences (due tomorrow) regarding a degree in maths:

http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=297910

 

[Obvious]

OP don't waste you're time with James Stewart- get your hands on Calculus by Michael Spivak and that will be more than enough preparation for 2962 (this covers more than the advanced first year calc units). If you can't get spivak then I've heard Apostol and Courant have both written good books on the subject.

For Linear Algebra you don't really need the background because it moves onto abstract stuff which is completely different to the first year work. But if you really want to study something I'd have a look at Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler which will give you a head start on 2961. This book doesn't assume any prior knowledge.

As said above baby rudin is excellent for intoductory analysis but I think it's a bit above 2962 (Rudin covers metric spaces wheras 2962 apparantly only deals with Euclidean spaces).

I think the best thing to make your transition to rigorous mathematics less traumatic is to get a book on proof writing. I found "How to Prove It: A Structured Approach" by Velleman to be very helpful but I'm sure there are many similar books that would do the trick.

Thanks for the advice! I'm finishing off the last pages of the linear algebra section of MATH2961, planning on starting vector calculus tomorrow. After that I'll read Spivak and study MATH2969 for the remainder of the month, and then MATH2962 with Rudin.

Do you have any recommendations for MATH2969? The subject website appears to have been wiped along with the listed textbooks.