Jim's Spring 2009 courses

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title:       Information Theory
number:      new course
area:        computer science
faculty:     Jim Mahoney
credits:     4
time:        Tues/Thu 10 - 11:20am
place:       Sci 217
level:       intermediate / advanced
repeat:      no, cannot be repeated for credit
prereq:      math and programming experience
blurb:
             An introduction to what computer scientists
             mean by "information", including topics in
             data compression (such as zip files and mp3),
             error correcting codes, information entropy,
             cryptography, and randomness.  This is an
             intermediate course in computer science, and
             as such requires some background in programming
             as well as math through at least pre-calculus.

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title:       Introduction to Internet Technologies
number:      new course
area:        computer science
faculty:     Jim Mahoney
credits:     4
time:        Tue/Fri 1:30 - 3pm
place:       Sci 217
level:       intro
repeat:      no, cannot be repeated for credit
prereq:      none
blurb:
             An introduction to the various technologies
             behind the internet, including HTML, CSS, TCP/IP,
             DNS, and a whole lot of other acronyms.  The
             course will be roughly divided into two parts:
             one on web page creation, and the other on
             internet infrastructure along with a little history
             and culture.  Depending on the background of the
             participants, we may also do a little JavaScript,
             the programming language that makes web pages "do" things.
             Further internet related work at Marlboro (such
             as the Web Programming class) builds on the material
             in this course.

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title:       Differential Equations, Chaos, and Scientific Computing
number:      new course
area:        mathematics, computer science, physics
faculty:     Jim Mahoney
credits:     4
time:        Tues/Thurs 8:30 - 9:50am
place:       Sci 217
level:       intermediate
repeat:      no, cannot be repeated for credit
prereq:      calculus
blurb:
	     Differential equations are the language with which
             physicists describe the way the world works.
             This course looks at ways to understand these
             equations with both traditional symbolic methods
             as well as numerical computer simulations.
             We'll start with linear equations such as
             the harmonic oscillator and progress to non-linear
             systems that exhibit chaotic behavior, using
             computer tools such as Mathematica to
             write programs that explore the solutions
             to the equations.