MATH203-25S1 (C) Semester One 2025

Linear Algebra

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 17 February 2025
End Date: Sunday, 22 June 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 2 March 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 11 May 2025

Description

Linear algebra is a key part of the mathematician's toolkit and has applications to many areas in science, commerce and engineering. This course develops the fundamental concepts of linear algebra, including vector spaces, linear transformations, eigenvalues, and orthogonality. Emphasis is placed on understanding both abstract mathematical structures and their concrete applications.

Course Information:
Linear algebra is a key part of the mathematician's toolkit and has applications to many areas in science, commerce and engineering. This course develops the fundamental concepts of linear algebra, including vector spaces, linear transformations, eigenvalues, and orthogonality. Emphasis is placed on understanding both abstract mathematical structures and their concrete applications.

Topics Covered:
Vector spaces; Linear independence, bases and coordinate systems; Linear transformations, matrices, rank, nullity, and relationships between the fundamental matrix spaces; Eigenvalues, eigenvectors, diagonalisation and canonical forms of a matrix; Inner products and orthogonality; Gram-Schmidt process, QR-decomposition and orthogonal projections; Orthogonal diagonalization and the spectral theorem; Vector and matrix norms and condition numbers; LU-decompositions.

Applications:
Markov chains, population and economic models, coupled systems of linear ordinary differential equations, linear recurrence relations, Fourier series, least squares approximation, cryptography, coding theory, data compression.

Learning Outcomes

  • At the end of the course, students will:

  • be proficient in the standard techniques of linear algebra;
  • understand why these techniques work;
  • be able to use these techniques in a variety of applications
  • have developed problem solving skills both as part of a team and as an individual;
  • have developed written and oral communications skills, emphasizing the ability to explain what the mathematics means.

Prerequisites

Restrictions

MATH252, MATH254, EMTH203, EMTH204, EMTH211, DATA203

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Monday 17:00 - 18:00 A3 Lecture Theatre
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
Lecture B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Wednesday 15:00 - 16:00 Meremere 108 Lecture Theatre
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
Lecture C
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Thursday 08:00 - 09:00 C2 Lecture Theatre
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
Tutorial A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Friday 12:00 - 13:00 Jack Erskine 443
24 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
02 Thursday 10:00 - 11:00 Jack Erskine 111
24 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
03 Tuesday 09:00 - 10:00 Jack Erskine 340
24 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
04 Wednesday 14:00 - 15:00 Psychology - Sociology 456
24 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
05 Thursday 11:00 - 12:00 Jack Erskine 235
24 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun

Course Coordinator

Charles Semple

Assessment

To obtain a clear pass in this course, you must both pass the course as a whole (≥ 50%) and also obtain at least 40% in the final examination.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $897.00

International fee $5,188.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Mathematics and Statistics .

All MATH203 Occurrences

  • MATH203-25S1 (C) Semester One 2025