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Course Description

Summary

This is a course in advanced calculus, including vector calculus (div, grad, curl), ordinary differential equations, and partial differential equations. The goal is to learn enough mathematics to understand the formulation of the fundamental physical laws, and their most important solutions: Newtons laws and planetary motion; Maxwells laws and electromagnetic waves; Einstein's special relativity and the energy-mass relation; and Schroedingers equation in quantum mechanics and the structure of the hydrogen atom. This is an ambitious list of topics to cover in one term; we will manage it by skipping over any mathematics that does not lead directly to the goal. We will also skip over any subtleties of real life physics, to concentrate on the mathematics of the idealized equations.