MATH5215 is a Mathematics Level V course. See the course overview below.

Units of credit: 6

Prerequisites: There are no formal prerequisites but it will be assumed that students are familiar with Differential Equations (MATH2120/2130) and Linear Algebra (MATH2501).

Cycle of offering: Variable.

Graduate attributes: the course will enhance your research, inquiry and analytical thinking abilities.

More information: this recent course handout (pdf) contains information about course objectives, assessment, course materials and the syllabus. (This pdf will usually be updated by the end of the first week of the session.)

The Online Handbook entry contains up-to-date timetabling information.

If you are currently enrolled in MATH5215, you can log into the My eLearning Vista instance of this course.

Dynamics is one of the oldest scientific disciplines dating back to 1642 (the year that Galileo died and Newton was born) plus or minus half a lifetime. Most of the early work in the field was concerned with explaining and predicting the motions of planets and comets in the solar system. Newton’s development of a theory of gravitation and analytical methods in differential equations was tremendously successful, particularly for two body problems, but solutions for three body problems proved illusive.

Modern Dynamics began with the work of Poincar ´e in the late 1800s and early 1900's. Poincar ´e developed a geometric approach to obtain qualitative rather than quantitative solutions of nonlinear differential equations, but the complex geometrical structures that he envisaged proved to be a stumbling block for almost a hundred years. In addition to Poincar ´e’s geometric approach, significant advances were made through the 1900s in developing perturbation methods to describe nonlinear oscillator systems.

This course is aimed at honours level mathematics majors, or equivalent, with interests in pursuing research in Statistical and Nonlinear Dynamics or interests in applying some of the tools from this field.