MA30287: Mathematics of Planet Earth

Author

Philippe H. Trinh

Published

May 4, 2024

Preface

Welcome to to the 2023-24 delivery of MA30287 Maths of Planet Earth at the University of Bath.

Here is a picture that represents the course.

Figure 1: This picture was produced by Abstruse Goose and has the title “This is how scientists see the world”.

Lectures and office hours

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Lectures take place at the following times and locations:

  • Tuesdays 9:15 in 6W 1.2
  • Wednesdays 11:15 in 6W 1.2
  • Thursdays 15:15 in 8W 3.22

Office hours: You will be able to find me for an office hour in 4W 2.18 on Thursdays (following the lecture). Typically it is best to set this up, beforehand, by email appointment.

Coursework and examinations

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Your final mark will be 25% coursework and 75% final exam.

Details of the coursework will be released in Week 7 and it will be due in Week 101.

Resources

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In general, you will have access to a few kinds of resources:

  1. The Moodle portal will be the main organisation portal.

  2. Lecture notes, coursework, and other resources will be found in an online format and will be linked on Moodle.

  3. Coding will be done via Noteable, accessed via the Moodle website.

Naturally, because this is a relatively new module at Bath, there will be a fair amount of activity as we settle the material over the semester. Whenever we complete a lecture note (i.e. a ‘chapter’), we will use a box like this to indicate when the material was covered and in which lecture:

2023-24 note

The material in this note was covered in Lecture XX.

Hopefully by the time the module ends, every relevant chapter will have such a note. This allows you to judge what material has been ‘finalised’.

Prerequisites

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This course officially requires MA20221 (modeling and dynamical systems) or XX20231 (mathematical and statistical methods for the life sciences).

It is designed to be somewhat stand-alone in the sense that applied mathematical techniques learned in other courses will be introduced in some capacity. Such techniques will involve:

  • Solutions of ordinary differential equations (MA10230 and MA20220).
  • Multivariable calculus, partial differentiation, and multiple integrals (MA10230 and MA10236); some review/introduction of concepts from MA20223.
  • Dynamical systems, stability, phase planes (MA20221, MA30060).
  • Numerical methods in Python (MA10276).

Whenever possible, I have isolated such reviews/introductions and these can be found in the Mathematical methods section of these notes.

Resources

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This course is designed around the following sources:

  1. Subject to confirmation.↩︎