Overview
MATH5785 is an honours and postgraduate coursework mathematics course. Its main prerequisite is some mathematical maturity. See the course overview below.
Units of credit: 6
Prerequisites: Core higher second year course or permission of the lecturer.
Cycle of offering: Course not offered every year.
Graduate attributes: The course will enhance your research, inquiry and analytical thinking abilities.
More information: The Course outline will be made available closer to the start of term - please visit this website: www.unsw.edu.au/course-outlines
This recent course outline contains information about course objectives, assessment, course materials and the syllabus.
Important additional information as of 2023
UNSW Plagiarism Policy
The University requires all students to be aware of its policy on plagiarism.
For courses convened by the School of Mathematics and Statistics no assistance using generative AI software is allowed unless specifically referred to in the individual assessment tasks.
If its use is detected in the no assistance case, it will be regarded as serious academic misconduct and subject to the standard penalties, which may include 00FL, suspension and exclusion.
The online handbook entry contains information about the course. The timetable is only up-to-date if the course is being offered this year.
If you are currently enrolled in MATH5785, you can log into UNSW Moodle for this course.
Course overview
We will look at the development of geometry through the ages, starting with the ancient Greek approach to Euclidean geometry (Pythagoras’ theorem and all that). We pass through projective geometry (do parallel lines meet at infinity?) to spherical geometry (navigation problems) and hyperbolic geometry (how troubles with the parallel postulate led to the invention of curved space). At the end we will find out why Einstein changed his views on the value of mathematics, and touch on algebraic geometry, the area of geometry where Fields Medals are won.
The approach is geometric, algebraic, combinatorial and computational. Students will be expected to work on problems.
The course will cover the following topics:
- Euclidean geometry
- Projective geometry and fields
- Spherical and hyperbolic geometries
- Riemannian geometry
- Algebraic geometry