This is my web page for course MATH 121 A, Mathematical methods in physical sciences, that I took in spring 2004 at UC Berkeley. Hard course. Lots of HWs.
This is the syllubus
Professor Fraydoun Rezakhanlou, UC Berkeley Math department, gave the course. A very good teacher. Teaches without using notes, all from memory, which I thought was really amazing.
This course was lots of work. About 30-40 problems for HW each week. But only 2 random problems are graded. So it is possible to solve 39 of out 40 problems correctly and get only 50%, if the problem missed happened to be selected to grade.
Exams as closed notes and closed book. No cheat sheet either. No calculators.
Textbook was Mary Boas, second edition. This seems to be the standard book for this type of course are most universities, at least the ones I know about. It is a a very good book, but more detailed worked examples would have been nice. So another book such as the problem solvers type book might be useful to have.
For some reason this course (and Math121B) did not have discussion period, this was unfortunate since discussion periods can be really useful. I was told this is because of budget cuts in the California university system.
This below is a picture of Evans hall. It is a big tall building full of very smart people. The math department is on the 9th floor. The course was in room 75, which is on the ground floor on Evans hall.
These are the Course outline handouts. Page 1, and page 2. it contains the problems to solve for each HW.
Spring 2004 (January-May 2004)
Course description: Functions of a complex variable, Fourier series, finite-dimensional linear systems. Infinite-dimensional linear systems, orthogonal expansions, special functions, partial differential equations arising in mathematical physics. Intended for students in the physical sciences who are not planning to take more advanced mathematics courses.
Units: 4
Book: MATHEMATICAL METHODS IN PHYSICAL SCI, BOAS. 2nd edition chapters 1,2,4,7,9,14,15
Instructor: Professor Fraydoun Rezakhanlou, Math department, UC Berkeley
Position: Associate Professor
E-mail: rezakhan@math.berkeley.edu To reduce spam, this address is javascript encoded.
Phone: +1 (510) 642-2838
Office: 815 Evans Hall
Research: Probability theory, Partial differential equations