<p>Has anyone taken this course? I couldn't find a lot of info about it :(</p>
<p>i took it with Evans last semester. what questions do you have?</p>
<p>How useful did you find the course, and what was it like in general? I’m a physical science major and I want to take more math without getting too much into the more proof-based courses (I suck at proofs). The prereqs are listed as 53 and 54, but would I be at a disadvantage by having only gone that far? Thanks!</p>
<p>The course was not difficult at all compared to other upper div math courses like 104,110,113, etc. The homework problems were usually something i could figure out in one sitting and the midterm/final was pretty straightforward.</p>
<p>Also, you don’t really need to worry about your proof skills because its hard to make PDEs rigorous without using analysis so the material doesn’t require a lot of abstract proofs at the undergraduate level. I think the professor only did a delta-epsilon proof once to show us how it would be done with full rigor. It would definitely help to have taken math 104 but you mainly just need know 53 REALLY well and the end of 54 pretty well. The book had like a 30+ page chapter on using separation of variables/fourier series and we covered it in one 50 minute lecture because its assumed you learned all of it in 54.</p>
<p>As far as usefuleness, i’m a math/econ major and i only took it because its a prereq for MFE programs so i haven’t really found any uses for it in other courses. However, i could definitely see why this course would be useful for physical science.</p>
<p>Good course, took it last spring. Proofs are not that bad; mostly you’re taking partial derivatives and integrating. And they’re not rigorous proofs. Usefulness? I’m a chemistry major and I took it for kicks (probably shouldn’t have done it then), but it’s kind of useful in things like quantum mechanics. We only had one midterm, homework was from Strauss which was a sort-of okay textbook. Final was quite…the experience lol.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response Jetforce. Glad to hear that there aren’t really any hidden prereqs. </p>
<p>@Spontaneity: Did you find the course manageable to take along with your chem classes? And could you elaborate a bit more on what you meant by the final being an experience? I’m a chem bio major so we may have similar outlooks on math courses haha. I have yet to take the Chem 120 and Physics 137 series, so I mainly wanted to know if knowing PDEs would help later on in those courses. Thanks.</p>
<p>Yeah, it was pretty manageable, but then again, I took it as a freshman, so I had ample time to study for Math 126. Ah yes, our final was an experience in the sense that by the end of it, a) my hand hurt really badly, and b) my brain turned into mush. It really all depends who you have as your professor. Our final was mostly deriving proofs that extended what we had gone over in lecture. It was just really long and rigorous, but doable.</p>
<p>I just finished 120A, and I can say that you probably don’t need 126 to do well in 120A. In 126, we did cover some of the “fun” topics that you won’t normally see, like energy evolution in space and time (the famous energy flux cone) and shock waves…those were fun. There were some chapters in Strauss about the hydrogen atom and the Schrodinger equation, but we didn’t cover them in 126. Know Green’s theorem well!! We used it so many times…I would say 126 is a good extension of Chem 120 and Physics 137, but isn’t necessary. Math 121 series may be more useful. It’s a good mesh of calculus and other calculations you’ll need for the 120 series, but not necessary. Also, if you want to prepare well for 120A, know Math 54 well. Quantum mechanics is pretty much all linear algebra (which I was like “ewwwww”)</p>