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BSc in Mathematical Science (CAO: GY319)
School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics, NUI Galway
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Why Mathematical Science?Mathematics underpins all of scientific endeavour and is critical to current research and development, nationally and internationally. Bright, talented graduates in mathematical science are sought now more than ever; their skill-set and experience are fundamental to a modern economy, and society in general. Mathematical Science is a combination of mathematics and its applications, and provides a solid framework within which to solve a vast array of fundamental and current scientific problems. The following are just a few examples of these. |
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What is the shape of three-dimensional space?The space we live in has three dimensions, which we normally call length, height and width. To us, the space looks flat, like the three dimensional equivalent of a plane. However, being flat is not the only possibility for a three dimensional universe. This shouldn't sound that weird: just think about the times when people thought the Earth was flat! In 1982, a famous American mathematician called William Thurston conjectured that any three-dimensional universe can be cut into pieces, each of which has one of eight possible "shapes". This became known as Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture. In 2003, the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman announced that he had discovered a way of showing that Thurston's conjecture was indeed true. For this, Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal (the most prestigious award in Mathematics) and one million dollars... however, he refused to accept either! |
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What is the link between statistics and Guinness?William Sealey Gosset (1876-1937), worked for Guinness corporation in Dublin as a chemist and statistician. The problems he was investigating for Guinness were based on small samples. He developed ground breaking theory in order to estimate using small samples and published his findings entitled The probable error of a mean in the esteemed statistical journal Biometrika in 1908 under the pseudonym "Student". This famous work was celebrated on the centenary anniversary of the paper in 2008, unveiling a commemorative plaque in the Guinness Brewery Museum in Dublin. Look out for it next time you visit... |
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What is going on in the mind of a cell?Each cell in your body has to respond to the conditions it finds itself in, including its own internal state as well as the signals it receives from the cells around it and the external environment. To do this, cells have intricate signalling networks, involving interactions between large numbers of bio-molecules. These networks act like miniature computers, a kind of cellular brain, that integrates all the signals received by the cell and determines how the cell should respond - usually by turning on or off specific sets of genes. How exactly these networks are structured is critical for understanding how biological organisms really work, and for helping to decide what should be done when things go wrong (i.e., treating disease). Through the analysis of several kinds of new sources of information, from genome sequences, to the results of high-powered experiments to work out which genes are on when, bioinformatics helps to address these and other fascinating questions in contemporary biological research. These questions can be profound and interesting in their own right, but are made more pressing by their potential application in areas such as biofuels, cancer, infectious diseases and many more. |
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Weather Forecasting and MathematicsThe atmosphere is a fluid and meteorologists use mathematical equations to describe how this fluid behaves. These equations describe how quantities such as the pressure, density, temperature and velocity of the atmosphere changes from moment to moment and from location to location. In weather forecasting, the state of the atmosphere is sampled at a given time using data collected from sources such as ground-based stations, satellites, weather balloons, ships and buoys. This data is then fed to powerful computers that numerically solve the model equations subject to the data received to obtain predictions of what the state of the atmosphere will be in the future. The results of these calculations are presented to the public in a format they can readily understand via weather forecasts in the media. With the advent of more powerful computers in recent decades, weather forecasting has become much more accurate. Weather models are also used, for example, in predicting the landfall of hurricanes and to investigate climate change. |
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How does Google find the webpage you are looking for?Most internet search engines can quickly search billions of webpages to find the ones matching key words that you provide. But their power lies not just in how quickly they can do this, or the number of pages they can search; if your search just presents you with the thousands (maybe millions) of pages that contain the words you are looking for, you'd still have to go through them all the find the one you want.The best search engines are distinguished by their algorithms for ranking search results. Google's PageRank is the most famous. It computes the relative importance of each page by building a huge matrix representing probability of following a link from one page to another. Computing an eigenvector of this matrix provides users with a vital tool for finding information quickly, and has made a lot of money for Google's founders! This interplay of algebra and computer science is just one of the areas of modern mathematics that feature in GY319. |
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National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland.
Phone: +353 (0)91 492332 (direct) , +353 (0)91 524411 x2332 (switchboard)
Fax: +353 (0)91 494542 Email: Mary.Kelly@nuigalway.ie
This page was last updated Tuesday, March 30