数学之旅 A Tour of Mathematics

匡世珉 | Columbia University

『来来来算一下打折之后多少钱,你不是学数学的嘛?』『不…数学系…不学这个…』『那你们学的啥?!』嗯,这个问题问得好。当我们谈论数学时,我们在谈论什么?数学系的人到底在学什么?数学家们又在干些什么?数学到底有什么用?这门课上,我们会一起来探索这些问题,接触伟大的数学家、精妙的数学概念以及酷炫的数学思想。

This course will try to introduce several main branches of (cool) mathematics. What is mathematics? Why is mathematics important? What are we talking about when we talk about algebra, analysis, and geometry…? Why do we need them? What are their applications? These are some of the questions we will be tackling in this course. No college-level math background is needed for this course.