Credit
This course will be listed for credit at SFU. Students from external universities may be able to obtain course credit as well. Details. Taking the course for credit is not a requirement for participating fully in the program.
Prerequisites
Highly motivated and talented undergraduate students from mathematics, applied mathematics, science and computer science are invited to apply. Applicants must have successfully completed basic undergraduate calculus, differential equations, and numerical analysis. Some experience in mathematical modelling or Matlab would be helpful but is not required. More important is mathematical maturity, a strong interest, and a willingness to get one's hands dirty with mathematical modelling, software and computer simulation.
Program structure
The course will be structured to focus on lectures in the morning and computing labs in the afternoons. The morning lectures will be given by Colin Macdonald or Steve Ruuth. The afternoon sessions will be led by graduate students or the lecturers as appropriate. We will have the students work together on assignments and on the research projects. In total, we intend to run a fun and lively program which introduces our students to some exciting modelling and computation, and helps to explore their interest in research in the computational and mathematical sciences.
In the first week, we will review elementary differential equations and finite difference methods in the plane. Next, calculus on manifolds will be introduced. A method for solving PDEs on surfaces will be described, and the software presented in class. A variety of continuum models on curved surfaces will be presented. The students will be divided into work groups tasked with solving problems by building mathematical models and then applying and modifying numerical software.
