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Online course: "Maths for Humans: Linear, Quadratic & Inverse Relations"

Published on the 07 Oct 2015


About the course

What’s the connection between the size of a city and the number of gas stations in it? How would you describe this relationship? How would you try to visualise and understand it?

Study real-world connections using algebra and geometry

In this free online course, we’ll look at a wide spectrum of interesting, and often surprising, mathematical relationships in our everyday world. These real-world interconnections can be studied using algebra and visualised concretely using graph paper and pencil, along with modern technologies such as graphing calculators and interactive graphing software.

Algebraic functions and their graphs allow us to make predictions, evaluate actions and test theories about many things - such as the trajectory of a football, the number of times the word “of”’ appears in a novel, scaling laws in biology and the relationship between supply and demand in economics.

Gain valuable skills for further study

Understanding basic mathematical relationships is vital to many fields of study: biology, engineering, business, economics, political science and design. By the end of this course, you’ll have hands-on experience with a wide range of explicit examples, be familiar with a core area of pre-calculus mathematics, and be ready to go on to more advanced study of calculus or linear algebra.

Whether you’re encountering these topics for the first time or brushing up on your high school mathematics, we hope you’ll actively join our community on this journey through some fascinating and practical topics that have contributed much to our understanding of the world around us.

Requirements

This course is aimed at:

  1. senior high school students wanting to strengthen and enrich their understanding of a core pre-calculus topic;
  2. new undergraduates wishing to review and consolidate their background in algebra and geometry in preparation for STEM studies;
  3. high school maths teachers;
  4. anyone with an interest in mathematics and a curiosity about how mathematics is intertwined with the real world.

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