Syllabus

Syllabus

Week Date Topic
1 April 2 Introduction to the ubiquitous nature of counting in mathematics and the natural sciences.
Hall of fame examples of counting.
2 April 9 The N-dimensional sphere.
3 April 16 Counting by Light. Counting the number of CO2 molecules in the atmostphere.
4 April 23 Counting stars and galaxies. Counting proteins in cells using fluorescent proteins.
5 April 30 Entropy as Counting. The great variational principle of thermodynamics.
6 May 7 Boltzmann Distribution as a Counting Problem
7 May 14 Counting prime numbers. Experimental mathematics, the prime-number theorem.
8 May 21 Counting walks and trajectories. The statistical physics of trajectories.
9 May 28 On counting and graphs.
10 June 4 The Future of Counting.