COMS10013

Mathematics for Computer Science B

Unit Organisation and Materials

As for Maths A, the unit consists of in-person lectures, in-person workshops and problem sheets, supplemented by lecture slides and in some cases, lecture notes. Taking the unit involves atending the in-person lectures and reading the associated lecture notes (if available) before coming to the workshops to work on problem sheets. You can also prepare by looking at the problem sheets before coming to the workshop. After the workshops, you check your solutions against the sample solutions made available on this web page.

The aim of the workshops is for you to work on problem sheets with your peers and with help from the Lecturer and Teaching Assistants. You will gain a lot by discussing problems, explaining solutions to others and asking questions when you don’t understand something. The more proactive you are in workshops, the more you are likely to gain. Some of the workshops will begin with a summary of the material relevant to the workshop, highlighting the key concepts and techniques. You will get the most out of this and the workshop as a whole if you have first prepared by studying lecture slides and notes if available.

Please try to come to the workshops prepared - having good access to lecture slides and notes is essential, either on a laptop or printed out. Viewing on phones tends not to be particularly effective given the size of the screen. Also, don’t forget a pencil/pen and paper.

There is also a help desk available each week - see your timetable for times - and please make good use of this if you are struggling with understanding the material and/or completing the problem sheets.

For AY 2023/24, the lectures, workshops and help desk are as follows:

Lecture 1: Monday 13:00-13:50 QB 1.4
Workshop 1: Tuesday 13:00-14:50 QB F101a
Lecture 2: Thursday 10:00-10:50 QB 1.4
Workshop 2: Thursday 13:00-14:50 QB F101a
Help desk: Thursday 16:00-16:50 QB 1.69

Linear Algebra (Weeks 13-17)

For Linear Algebra, there are two topics per week, labelled A and B below. For each topic there is one lecture, one problem sheet and one workshop. There are also course notes, although these may span two topics in some cases. Apart from Week 13, there are two workshops per week (labelled 1 and 2 below) - please see your timetable for times of lectures and workshops. Note that there is a gap between lectures and workshops to allow you to digest the material and prepare for the workshop, ie the topic in a lecture will be covered in the next but one workshop. This means that in Week 13 there is only one workshop and this will be the second one in the timetable for that week.

Week 13 - A: Vectors and the Dot Product

Week 13 - B: Geometry and Vectors

Week 14 - A: Vector Spaces, Span and Bases

Week 14 - B: Orthonormal Bases and Subspace Projections

Week 15 - A: Matrices

Week 15 - B: Linear Systems and Matrices

Week 16 - A: Solving Linear Systems and Inverting Matrices

Week 16 - B: Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors I

Week 17 - A: Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors II

Past exam questions and solutions for Linear Algebra

Reading Week

Week 18 is reading week. There are no workshops and no new materials.

Analysis (Weeks 19 - 21)

Week 19 - Infinitessimals, limits and extrema

This week we will learn some of the foundations of calculus in one and many dimensions. <!–

Week 20 - Taylor series, complex numbers and Differential equations

This week we will learn about Taylor series and solve some differential equations.

Week 21 - More Differential equations and Optimisation

This week we will learn more about differential equations and look at some optimisation problems

Past exam questions and solutions for Analysis

A selection of example exam questions with solutions.

Statistics (Weeks 22 - 23)