Aspects of Mathematics

 

This winter semester, the lecture “Aspects of Mathematics” will be offered for the first time and read by Prof. Dr. Fourier. This is a compulsory course in the Bachelor of Mathematics for education students according to the examination regulations of 2021 and is recommended for the fifth semester.

In this course, you will gain insights into various areas of mathematics that you have not become acquainted with, or only to a limited extent, in your previous course of study. The content is characterized by practical relevance and a high proportion of examples so that you will encounter topics that you can later assign as a teacher in the form of subject-specific work. The aims are therefore, among other things, to increase your interest in mathematics as such as well as its many applications and to introduce you to other fields. Possible areas of the lecture include optimization, graph theory, or number theory.

The final exam for “Aspects of Mathematics” is not a written exam but a project report. In a small group, you will choose and work on a given project in one of the topics covered and present it at the end of the semester. The grading will then be based on the report as well as the presentation. As a prerequisite for admission, weekly exercises on the topics covered will be handed in. Hence, the lecture is divided into two parts: A lecture part, in which content is taught and worked on together, and a project phase, in which you work on your final project with your small group.

Prerequisites for participation are knowledge of the lectures “Linear Algebra I & II” and “Analysis I & II”. Successful participation in the “Mathematical Dialogues” on these very topics is also helpful, as the final projects of the “Aspects of Mathematics” were written as Jupyter notebooks in julia. However, programming knowledge beyond this is not required.

Registration takes place at the beginning of the semester via RWTHonline. By registering, you automatically join the learning room in RWTHmoodle, which is also used to organize the exercises. All other important information about the lecture can also be found there.