Ideas in Mathematics and Their Applications

This course is designed for the liberal arts student who wants to sample the intellectual breadth of mathematics. Topics are chosen which are representative of the following fields: number theory, infinity in mathematics, geometry and topology, modern physics, computer arithmetic, set theory, the history of mathematics, probability and statistics, and graph theory. Applications of the ideas are presented wherever feasible. Some possible topics include: primality, the nature and representation of numbers, the Euclidean Algorithm, numerical approximation, geometric and sequences and series, cardinality, the bridges of Koenigsberg problem, projective geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, relativity, binary arithmetic, symbolic logic, the life of a selected mathematician, games of chance, misusing data, planar graphs, and network analysis. (MTH 2160 is not recommended for students whose major requires a statistics course or another math course. It does not meet the BBA base curriculum math requirement.)This course is not open to students who completed any other mathematics course numbered 2000 or higher.MTH 2140 and MTH 2160 may substitute for each other in the F-replacement policy. The policy on repeating courses covers MTH 2140 and MTH 2160, e.g., one course taken three times, each course taken once, or a one-and-two combination. All combinations will be treated identically as three attempts.