MATH3511: Transformations, Groups, and Geometry

20% Midterm Exam

2 x 15% Assignments

50% Final Exam

12 units in a second-year mathematics course. I would strongly recommend one of those be Linear Algebra (MATH2501/2601), and take Complex Analysis (MATH2521/2621) before or at the same time. There is a lot of overlap between this course and Complex Analysis towards the end. Brush up on 3U circle geometry before beginning this course.

This is a fascinating mixture of subjects, which all compliment each other well. The course begins with Triangle and Circle geometry, which introduces mostly new stuff than what was covered during high school, and goes much more in-depth with proofs, although these are (for the most part) not assessed. Menelaus' and Desargues' theorems formed a large component of this early work.
The transformations component is why I reccomend taking Linear Algebra and Complex Analysis before this course. Part of this topic revolved around matrix manipulation and understanding how a matrix can be used in a geometrical sense. Another part used linear fractional transformation, a topic covered in Complex Analysis. I found that understanding how compositions of transformations could result in another transformation was the key to success during this topic
I was never able to truly grasp the idea of a group in this course. I struggled with the notation, the calculations, and how groups functioned. This certainly dragged down my mark in the final exam and is why I gave it a high difficulty rating at the end of the course.
Overall this is still a great subject and was a lot of fun to take.

4 hours of lectures each week. 1-hour tutorial each week

2/5 Towards the start of the course. 4.5/5 By the end

Yes.

John Steele, 4/5. I enjoyed John lecturing this course much more than I enjoyed him lecturing several variable calculus earlier this year.

Full set of notes are available on moodle

5/5

2019/T3

79 DN.