A question about Applied Maths

Hello to all who read this, and thanks for looking at my post.

I'm extremely interested in taking up Applied Maths. I'm doing Honours Maths and Physics and I don't find either to be that difficult at all. See, I'm repeating my Leaving Cert as I was sick at the time of my leaving last year; And they don't do Applied Maths in my school.

Would it be a very hard subject to take up and to learn myself? My favourite chapters in Physics are the mechanics chapters, and in maths my favourites are trigonometry and calculus: And I know they'd be of benefit to Applied Maths. And if i took it up, I wouldn't be taking it up exactly for points, just as a reserve, and honestly I'd only be taking it up because I love whats on the course and I find it very interesting. Oh and if its of any relevence I'm going to do Theoretical Physics in Trinity next year, so it may help with that course.

So my question is: Is it too difficult to teach myself? If not do you know of any good websites/books that could aid in my teaching myself. And is there really any point in taking it up?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

5uspect

Applied maths AFAIK is basically mechanics. Go for it!

manicmonoliths

If you're thinking of doing TP in any college App Maths would be a huge plus.

In terms of teaching yourself I can't really say how hard it would be. I did Applied Maths as an 8th subject, but myself and the 9 or so other guys who took it were taught by a teacher from school outside normal hours. I did find the course pretty tough in places and I found some concepts hard to grasp so having a teacher who understood the course was definitely a big plus for me. Once you understand the topics though obviously all you'd be doing is practising questions, so after a certain point a teacher would kinda become obsolete except for correcting work and pointing out errors.

I'd definitely say it's worth doing without question. You say you want to do it as a back-up subject that's fair enough, I did it as a 'point booster' because I didn't want to have to depend on Irish.

Thanks for your replies.

Yah a teacher would be great, but as far as I know there are no grind teachers anyway close to where I live, shows how popular Applied Maths is I suppose! And they never do it in my school as enough people never apply to do it, so thats kinda crap.

But just to people who are doing it, how would you compare it to Honours Maths? Like would it be equally hard or harder or what? Because I've no problems with teaching myself Honours Maths.

Thanks.

Jay P

It's closer to Physics really than honours maths. In fact. App maths and Honours maths are two very different courses. Knowlege of trigonometry and algebra is a must but the questions are very different.

Yah I know they're completely different! I was just wondering would the level of difficulty between the two (Honours maths and Applied maths) be similar? I.e Do people consider Applied maths harder than honours maths etc.

Thanks.

meeka

Although I somehow ended up getting a better grade in honours maths in the end, I found Applied Maths a lot easier to grasp than maths.. It's all fairly logical and most of the questions come with diagrams, which make it quite easy to visualise what's going on, and what you're trying to do.

I'd definitely go for it, if I were you! It's also quite a short course, so as long as you work at it consistently, I doubt you'd be under any time constraints by doing it in a year. As far as websites go, I think I remember skoool.ie having good enough notes on the main topics

grimreaper1001

It would all depend on your teacher. I recommend if you are going to do applied mathematics that you have someone that can answer your Q's.

rainbow kirby

Seriously, go for it. From the sounds of everything in the original post, taking it sounds like a very good idea. The course is very doable in one year, and sounds like it would be of a lot of use to the OP. I did it in a year, taking classes at a local grind school, and got an A1.

Probably the best book you could use is "Fundamental Applied Mathematics", it's a brown book and I can't remember who wrote it.

MathsManiac

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Probably the best book you could use is "Fundamental Applied Mathematics", it's a brown book and I can't remember who wrote it.

Oliver Murphy. Published by Folens.

And if you do end up teaching yourself, it is a good book from the point of view of explaining things well.

By the way, what part of the country are you in, that you're not within striking distance of an applied maths teacher/class?

Thanks to everyone for their replies. People seem to think its doable in a year anyway so I might as well give it a try! I'll order a copy of 'Fundamental Applied Maths' and have a run through it, also the examsupport.ie applied maths grinds seem to be pretty good, any opinion on them?

I'm in a smallish town in East Galway called Portumna, so the nearest applied maths grind or teacher I can think of would probably be Galway city, a bit too far to go for grinds for me anyway! I'll give a look around and see is there anybody closer anyway.

Thanks again for your replies.