Elementary Mathematics Lesson 1 Homework

Here are some homework results from Di. Here we will call the Stop Reading and Do Something exercises  SRADS.

SRADS #1 - A number is a representation of a quantity of something.

SRADS #2

 
SRADS #3: We label them with numbers with what they represent like 3 apples or 2 squares.

Elementary Mathematical Methods Course

Elementary Mathematical Methods Session 2 Tonight at 8 PM Central Time on Skype and TeamViewer 8.

Elementary Mathematics Course Lesson 1

Di has proposed a Mathematica program to demonstrate some ideas from set theory. We worked on it together and it is now embedded in Lesson 1 at www.madscitech.org/elemath.

Elementary Mathematical Methods - Session 1

Those people who want to register for the course, send me an email at george@madscitech.org. You may connect up with us tonight at 8 PM Central Time on Skype. Use my Skype name georgehrab. If you are not registered for the course, I will not respond.

The Conduct of the Elementary Mathematical Methods Course

The conduct of the course will be like this:
1) Written material will be added each week.
2) Every Saturday at 8PM Central Time there will be a live session via Skype and TeamViewer. This session is very important. Do not ignore this. If you need to get a microphone for your computer, do so. Download Skype, it's free! So is TeamViewer 8.
3) Throughout the week discussions will be held at The Mind of a Theorist - The Blog. These are also important. I can only gauge how you are doing by examining your "homework". The discussions will be where you express issues you are having. It also gives those who understand the material a chance to test out their understanding by explaining things to others.
I have several people who emailed me that they are signing up for the course. Anyone else who is interested, you have until this next Friday to sign up and read what I have put up already. You can sign up by sending email to george@madscitech.org.

Elementary Mathematical Methods for Science Course

The official web site will be here: http://www.madscitech.org/elemath/index.html

The Elementary Mathematical Methods Course is On

OK, there are now enough people interested to do this. I will need people to email me for signing up for the course. Use my email address george@madscitech.org.

Elementary Mathematical Methods

If I can get a total of 10 people interested I will teach a course on Elementary Mathematical Methods for Science. This will consist of units on algebra, estimation and dimensions, geometry, trigonometry, analytic geometry, calculus, linear algebra, multivariable calculus, differential equations, and probability and statistics. Possibly other topics as well.

I have 4 people interested already.

Here is how the course will be conducted:

1) Each Friday I will place material on a web site for the course. This will be in the form of a cdf file, a format created by Wolfram Research. Many of these documents will contain interactive material for you to play with. There will be a number of challenges: 2-3 will be done in complete detail, 1-2 will be done in less detail, 1-2 will be done in little detail, and 1-2 will have no detail.

2) Discussions of the work will continue on the blog until the students are done with them. If this takes 2 months, then I know that I have done something wrong.

3) Throughout the week I will monitor the blog to see what responses I get. This will determine the new material I put up on Friday of that week. I will also put up a record of the discussion formatted for the mathematics

4) Upon completion of an assignment by all participants I will post a transcription of the discussion formatted in Mathematica and converted into a cdf.

5) If people are interested, I will have a live session on Saturday evenings beginning at 8PM central time and going until 10 PM central time. This will be via Skype and will use TeamViewer as the desktop sharing software so that I can answer questions directly.

6) If I can figure out a way to do it efficiently I will produce audio lectures keyed to the material, so you can follow along.

New Information Theory Post and Mathematica 9

Mathematica 9 has come out and has some amazing new capabilities. I have produced a new information theory post using some of the new functions. This is at http://www.madscitech.org/information/information.html

Starting a new Writing Project

I will be working on a textbook for University Physics, called University Physics with Modern Physics. I know, terribly original title. This book will be freely available as a series of downloads from the web site www.madscitech.org/upmp starting today. I envison this as a bunch of Mathematica-based cdfs (computational documents) and pdfs. I will also be able to put together custom textbooks to suit the needs of specific classes. These will be available at Lulu (www.lulu.com), and through the web site above. At this stage I am working on the structure of the contents. In general, here are the contents:

1. Introduction to Physics
2. Mathematics
3. Mathematical Physics
4. Theoretical Physics
5. Computational Physics
6. Experimental Physics
7. Classical Physics
8. Modern Physics
9. Using Calculus to Model Motion
10. Introduction to Mathematica
11. Error Analysis
12. Newtonian Mechanics
13. Thermodynamics and Energy
14. Fields and Waves
15. Problems with Classical Physics
16. Einstein's Relativity
17. Quantum Physics
18. Applications of Relativity and Quantum Physics
19. Differential Equations

There is a LOT more, but this will be enough for now. :-)

The Web Page for The Theoretical Minimum is Up!

The web page for The Theoretical Minimum is up and you can see it at: www.madscitech.org/tm.

Book Update

The book, The Theoretical Minimum, will be published by Basic Books at the end of January of 2013. There will be a companion web site: www.madscitech.org/tm, it is not yet up! Don't go there and then tell me there is no link!

New Writing on Information Theory: Some important theorems on Markov Chains, their proofs, and how to model Markov Chains in Mathematica. http://www.madscitech.org/information/information.html

New Information Theory Site on MAST

I have formalized my notes on information theory and placed them on the MAST website. You can find tham at http://www.madscitech.org/information/information.html

Lots of Things: Mathematica Consulting to Quantum Gravity to Storm Chasing

It has been a month and a half since my last post. Sounds almost like confession, doesn't it?

I could say that I have been snowed under with work, I have been sick for a week, I have been planning and executing the storm chase from Hell and another that was very successful. I could say that I have been trying to get MAST into the Mathematica Consulting game. I could say that I have been working on a new idea in quantum gravity. All of these things are true, and yet none of them are sufficient.

The truth is that I have been somewhat lazy. For that I apologize. I will not promise not to do it again.

Some new results

MAST has begun to post some research results!

1) I have started to do some dripping handrail models of accretion disks. You can find them here: http://www.madscitech.org/csg/accretion.html

2) James Firmiss and I have begun serious work on neutron star equations of state, results will be put up shortly.

3) Chris Winfield is giving a talk on local solvability at the American Mathematical Society meeting in New Orleans, that talk is located here: http://www.madscitech.org/csg/AMS10mintalk.pdf

4) We are doing research and development of database capabilities in Mathematica, mostly due to the efforts of Rocky Wenz.

More results will be reported as they occur!

Project Updates

Hello!

I have been insanely busy the last week. Had a great Thanksgiving!

Just completed Chapter 9 in the book project, this is a survey of linear algebra. I am about to start in on chapter 10, Leonard Susskind's classical mechanics Lecture 5.

I am also developing the program for the Institute for Scientific Computing Summer School program. I am also working on developing courses for teaching Mathematica 8 online.

That's all for now.

Project Updates

I am about to finish chapter six of the book project.

We (MAST) are planning a Summer School on Computational Physics; this will tentaively be held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Physics and will be held from 15 June 2011 to 15 August 2011. Check out the MAST website for details.

We are exploring the possibility of Mathematica training over the web. This will include beginner training all the way up to advanced applications.

The Mind of a Theorist - The Relaunch of the Column

You can find the rewritten and reformated column at www.madscitech.org
I will be placing a new column up every week.