Overview

MATH2400 is a Mathematics Level II course. 

Units of credit: 3

Prerequisites: MATH1081 or MATH1231 or MATH1241 or MATH1251 or DPST1014

Cycle of offering: Term 2 

Graduate attributes: The course will enhance your research, inquiry and analytical thinking abilities.

More information: The course handout 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 up-to-date timetabling information.

If you are currently enrolled in MATH2400, you can log into UNSW Moodle for this course.

Course aims

Since the introduction of digital computers, the importance of discrete and thus finite problems in mathematics has become apparent. For this reason this course, which introduces students to some basic ideas on Finite Mathematics, should prove useful to future Computer Scientists and Software Engineers while at the same time providing Mathematics students with an introduction to ideas in Number Theory, the theory of finite fields, cryptography and Algebraic Coding Theory. There is a follow-on course, MATH3411, Information, Codes and Ciphers, which develops the ideas in greater depth.

Course description

This is an introduction to those areas of Mathematics which underpin parts of computing. The main topics are integer and modulo arithmetic (including tests for primeness of integers), polynomial algebra (including factorization of polynomials and creation of new fields) and an introduction to cryptography and error correcting codes.

Note: MATH1081 Discrete Mathematics is recommended.