MA497      Half Unit
Project in Mathematics

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Mutually exclusive courses:

This course cannot be taken with MA498 at any time on the same degree programme.

The Project in Mathematics is an individual, substantial piece of work. It may develop theory first introduced in a taught course, or consist of implementation and analysis of algorithms seen in a taught course. It may also be based on an area of research in mathematics or algorithms. The student will write a comprehensive report, and deliver a professional presentation on their work. The project topic will normally be proposed by the Department.

15 hours of seminars.

A minimum of 15 hours of seminars across the Autumn and Winter terms. Seminars do not include personal supervision time, which is scheduled independently with student supervisors.

Several seminars will include presentations by members of the Department of Mathematics on proposed topics for projects that they would be interested in supervising. Additional seminars will cover important aspects of writing a project in mathematics, including: what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, the use of libraries for research, electronic research, general aspects of writing mathematics, and preparing a manuscript using mathematical text processing software (in particular, LaTeX). Each student will be assigned a supervisor who will monitor their progress and provide appropriate guidance thorough the WT, ST, and over the summer.

Research report in Spring Term Week 1

Students will be expected to produce a report (in WT, submitted at the beginning of ST) for which feedback will be provided. This report is expected to form a section of the final project report.

Detailed suggestions for reading will be provided by the supervisor.

Projects vary across Mathematics and Computation, and no one book is suitable for all projects.

Video (20%) in July

Research project (80%) in August

Assessment is primarily based on the Project Report, an electronic copy of which must be submitted by early September (exact date to be specified later). The report may include some software relating to the project. Detailed information about the required format for this submission will be provided during the Seminars.

In July, each student will produce a video presentation on their project. The presentation will be graded and worth 20% of the course grade. Students will be given support in the seminars, and from their supervisor, on how to prepare, how to present and what is expected.