Math 242 Summer 2009
MATH 242 Introduction to Analysis
Summer 2009 Simon Fraser University Burnaby Campus
Instructor Adam Oberman, TA Suling Yang,
- Email syangc@sfu.ca please math the subject MATH 242 for prompt reply.
Lectures MWF AQ 2154
Textbook Analysis with an Introduction to Proof, Steve Lay
- on reserve, at http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b3943363~S1a
Introduction
This course is an introduction to analysis. Although the approach is purely theoretical, the approach will teach you a way of thinking which is essential to understanding error analysis. You will learn to broaden your thinking about numbers from a fixed value, to a fixed value with a tolerance. This comes up in various guises in advanced mathematics as stability.
Failing to think about tolerances can have dire consequences. For example the current problems in the global financial market have to do with assigning prices to assets which in fact are better modeled as have a very wide tolerance of prices (while the value of a commodity changes over time, there is always a fixed price on the market, but complicated financial instruments don't always have an agreed upon value, this is why there is no market for them).
While this course will not touch upon applications, the kind of rigorous thinking developed will be important in decision making and analysis.
Motivation
This course will build the rigorous foundations of analysis. It takes a disciplined approach to building the foundations. Think of it as the "wax on, wax off" approach to learning analysis. (Okay this is a pop culture reference video that reveals my age, I will be doing a lot of that. If you get tired of it, you can help me out.)