...within the Mathematics Major
The Applied Mathematics Track provides undergraduates with a new reason to major in mathematics. It includes two new courses in applied mathematics that emphasize mathematical modeling where you will learn about an application domain as you master new mathematical techniques.
MAT 211 / APC 216: Introduction to Applied Mathematics. This is a portal to the mathematics major developed by Ingrid Daubechies. The new course draws inspiration from the natural sciences, engineering, and the social sciences. It is organized in modules that cover dynamical systems and chaos, communication and signal compression, and fair division and voting. Each is an opportunity to introduce fundamental concepts such as convexity and continuity, to formulate and rigorously prove theorems, and to connect these results back to the application domain.
MAT 351 / APC 351: Topics in Mathematical Modeling. This is an upper division course developed by Philip Holmes. It draws problems from the sciences and engineering for which mathematical models have been developed and analyzed in order to describe, understand and predict natural and man-made phenomena. Topics will change from year to year with Classical Mechanics and Chaos taught in Fall 2005 and Mathematical Neuroscience taught in Fall 2006. The continuing theme is how applications motivate mathematical developments and how mathematical techniques influence the questions that science is able to address. The new course assumes familiarity with the application domain at the high school or freshman level and describes strategies for building models, including the level of detail and selection of an appropriate mathematical language.
