Splash Biography

Math, at its core, is essentially creative. This is a little hard to see: the way math is generally taught is as a collection of rules, designed to solve specific problems in a rigorous fashion. But this view of math misses the most excellent part of the subject. Every so often, mahematicians notice that a bunch of seemingly unrelated problems are really just examples of an as-yet-undiscovered idea. This is the real soul of the subject. This class is an introduction to one of these new big ideas - the theory of groups. Groups are essentially a way of talking about symmetries; and it turns out that pretty much everything in math is tied to the idea of symmetry. In this class, I'll show you what groups are, and how they can change how we look at all sorts of mathematics. If we're lucky,we'll be looking at some research-level math, but don't worry - this class has no prerequisites.