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Applied Maths - What Maths?

  • 03-10-2013 1:27pm
    #1
    moycullen14
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 897 ✭✭✭


    Hi,

    I'm currently trying to help a relative with LC Applied Maths. Now it's a long time since I did any AppMaths but, Newton's Laws haven't changed recently so how hard can it be?

    One thing I'm flabbergasted with is that he has got to September in LC and has done almost no calculus in honours maths.

    My understanding was that Applied Maths was the Application of Maths which kinda presupposes that you have some maths to apply. I'm right in thinking that honours maths is a prerequisite for honours applied maths? And trying to do app. maths without a good foundation in algebra, trig & calculus is well-nigh impossible.

    Last night we were having a look at Simple Harmonic Motion and trying to explain that x = Asin(wt + a) satisfies a = -Aw^2x WITHOUT calculus is well-nigh impossible.

    Questions: Is this the pupils fault or is it common that you could be doing LC hons maths and get to September of 6th year without much calculus OR does project maths make App Maths a much more difficult proposition.

    If the maths isn't being done then the best thing for the app maths teacher to do is to spend a month or two in 5th year doing whatever trig & calculus is required, not wait in vain for maths to catch up?

    I'd be interested in teachers views on this.


Comments

  • #2
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,074 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    moycullen14 wrote: »
    Last night we were having a look at Simple Harmonic Motion and trying to explain that x = Asin(wt + a) satisfies a = -Aw^2x WITHOUT calculus is well-nigh impossible.
    I'm not a teacher, but I did look at that formula in my Engineering course. Getting the first formula from the second requires more than just basic Calculus, the sinusiodal formula is a solution to the differential equation.

    I seriously doubt they're getting in to Differential Equations at LC level. (My experience of 1st year Maths at UCD doesn't lead me to expect any different ... :cool:

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • #3
    Ciaran
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 938 ✭✭✭Ciaran


    bnt wrote: »
    I'm not a teacher, but I did look at that formula in my Engineering course. Getting the first formula from the second requires more than just basic Calculus, the sinusiodal formula is a solution to the differential equation.

    I seriously doubt they're getting in to Differential Equations at LC level. (My experience of 1st year Maths at UCD doesn't lead me to expect any different ... :cool:

    It's not a matter of deriving the first from the second. It's just showing that the first is a solution of the second, i.e. differentiating the first formula twice and subbing in.

    There's a whole question on the applied maths paper on differential equations too BTW.


  • #4
    moycullen14
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 897 ✭✭✭moycullen14


    Ciaran wrote: »
    It's not a matter of deriving the first from the second. It's just showing that the first is a solution of the second, i.e. differentiating the first formula twice and subbing in.

    There's a whole question on the applied maths paper on differential equations too BTW.

    It seems that while the LC Maths course has changed - and continues to change - Applied Maths has remained the same. As I suspected, this means that there is more Maths to be done in Applied Maths.


  • #5
    Michael Collins
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,852 Mod ✭✭✭✭Michael Collins


    moycullen14 wrote: »
    It seems that while the LC Maths course has changed - and continues to change - Applied Maths has remained the same. As I suspected, this means that there is more Maths to be done in Applied Maths.

    No doubt this is true. However, the question on differential equations on the applied mathematics paper, question 10, has been severly restricted by the new Project Maths syllabus. It pretty much guarentees this will be a very straightforward differential equation to solve - doesn't mean the question will be easy though I guess...

    You can read more about this here


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