Many mathematicians use general-purpose mathematical software which includes tools for symbolic and numerical computation and other features such as plotting, visualization and data analysis. Such software is used for solving linear and nonlinear equations, graphing the results, as a tool for exploring a mathematical concept, as a handbook of mathematical functions and integration rules, and as a technique for verifying the correctness of calculations done "by hand". In this introductory course, students will explore these ideas using the popular MATLAB software.
Matlab:
Students may access the system through college or individual computers; for the former they should consult the computing support at their own college. MATLAB may be installed and used on personally-owned computers under the University's site license. Information on downloading MATLAB can be found at
http://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/members/it/software-personal-machines/matlab. To access this page students will need to login using their University account.
Teaching and Assessment:
The course relies heavily on self-teaching through practical exercises. A manual for the course and examples to be worked through will be provided.
You are expected to go through the lecture notes and problem sheets at a steady pace, and you will be timetabled for sessions every fortnight where you will have access to help and advice from demonstrators. Please follow the instructions above to install MATLAB on your machine in plenty of time.
Your work in this course will be taken into account as part of the Preliminary Examinations. For further information, see the section on examinations in the Undergraduate Handbook.
