Math Methods (PHYS 304)

Instructor: Thushara Perera
Office: C007C in CNS
Office Hrs: Tue 10-noon, Wed 4-5, Thu 9-11. But feel free to drop by or schedule an appointment by email at any time
email: tperera
Phone: 556-3888

Course Meeting Times

Class: 10 to 10:50 on MWF and 4-5 on Monday, in CNS E106

Required Items

Text: Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas

Course Description and Objectives

This is the course where you will learn most of the mathematical tools/techniques, other than simple calculus, that you will use in upper-level courses such as 300- and 400-level physics courses.  So, the main purpose of the course is to get you familiar with the application of those techniques. i.e. you will learn how to apply a number of commonly-used mathematical techniques.  Another goal is to get you familiar with Mathematica, which is the software tool that we commonly use for symbolic math (look it up) in upper-level courses.

A secondary goal is to give you some understanding of why/how the mathematical methods work.  But, unlike in many of your other courses, this objective is really secondary.  In other words, we will use mathematics as a tool rather than focusing on its beauty, subtlety, and generality.  If you stay in the quantitative sciences, you will have plenty of opportunities to take classes, read books, and appreciate on your own the latter aspects.  A third goal is to give you some background on common applications of the techniques we learn, as time permits.  Again, you will have plenty of time to see applications of various mathematical methods in the upper-level courses you take.

Breakdown of Grades

Course Plan and Policies

You will want to read this section rather carefully because some of the class procedures and policies are somewhat non-standard.

General Advice

Expect to put a lot of time into this course.  That is to be expected because this course is both developmental and foundational for the path you have chosen in the sciences.

Online Resources

Look up this page often because the schedule (below) is likely to change substantially depending on how things are going.

Tentative Reading Schedule

The reading schedule has details on which sections to read only through Chapter 3.  Thereafter, only the chapter number is given.  By this point, you will have a good sense of how far to read within a chapter for a given day, even when section numbers are not given.