Mathematics (MATH)
Faculty
Professors Hardy, Heydari, Nimmo, and Rogers
Associate Professors Edge and H. Menzel
Assistant Professor Berglund, Torrance
Mathematics is a method of reasoning used to test truths. Some scholars define mathematics as observation, experiment, discovery and conjecture. Mathematics is described as a science of order or a science of patterns and relationships. As a science of patterns, mathematics is a mode of inquiry that reveals fundamental truths about the order of our world. Mathematics is the language in which nature speaks. In today’s technological world it is also an apt language for industry, business and commerce.
From the beginning of the ancient cultures, the language of mathematics has been used in measurement, counting, and geometry. Arithmetic enabled trades and financial transactions.
In recent centuries, mathematics provided the intellectual and inferential framework for the growth of science and technology. At the end of the 20th century, with the support of computers and worldwide digital communication, business and industry depend increasingly on modern mathematical and statistical analysis. These are the foundation disciplines of the natural, social and behavioral sciences.
Learning mathematics is a creative and active process of communication. A person engaged in mathematics gathers, discovers, creates and expresses facts and ideas about the patterns in natural phenomena. Instruction emphasizes that to know mathematics is to be engaged in a quest to understand and communicate, not merely to calculate. Laboratory work and fieldwork are necessary for a full understanding of mathematics. We study mathematics by classifying, explaining and describing patterns in all their manifestations.
Students who major or minor in mathematics have the opportunity to develop:
- Capabilities to communicate and understand the natural phenomena related to their physical or social environments,
- Ability to interpret everyday life problems through mathematical or logical representations,
- Knowledge of how to solve mathematical representations of real-world problems, and
- Ability to draw inferences by reasoning and to check the results of their mathematical representations for accuracy and validity.
Course Descriptions