We will take applications such as climate change and show how you can participate in the big open source community looking to find solutions to challenging problems with exposure to github and parallel computing. |
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You will learn mathematical ideas by immersion into the mathematical process, performing experiments, seeing the connections, and seeing just how much fun math can be. |
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Our course material is built using real code, and instead of a book, we have a series of interactive notebooks. On our website, you can play with sliders, buttons and images to interact with our simulations. You can even go further, and modify and run any code on our website! |
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| In literature it’s not enough to just know the technicalities of grammar. In music it’s not enough to learn the scales. The goal is to communicate experiences and emotions. For a computer scientist, it’s not enough to write a working program, the program should be written with beautiful high level abstractions that speak to your audience. This class will show you how. |
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Check out our interactive lecture material on computationalthinking.mit.edu!
Fall 2026 course page, under construction.
- Instructor: Alan Edelman
- Cross-listed as: 1.C25/6.C25/12.C25/16.C25/18.C25/22.C25
- Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
- Room: 45-102
- MIT listing: Department of Mathematics course list
We are working with two core beliefs:
- Humans like to learn, at least when it is not too stressful.
- LLMs can help us leapfrog our learning.
We will use LLMs to learn something beyond our prerequisites. Perhaps some of you will learn general relativity, a sophisticated climate model, Lie algebra, or how a car does regenerative braking, but the key requirements are:
- The material is something you conventionally would not have the background for, and you are on the honor system here.
- You learn it, create a Julia notebook (LLMs allowed!), and teach it to all of us, seminar style.
For the rest of the class, we want you engaged and asking questions.
Projects may be completed individually or in small groups, with each student responsible for understanding and presenting their part.
- Homework: 25%
- Class participation and questions: 10%
- Learning proposal: 10%
- Project notebook and development: 25%
- Final seminar presentation: 30%
The first homework is a proposal for what you want to learn. Explain what interests you about the subject, what you hope to understand, and why it is a genuine reach beyond your current background. You should convince us that this is something you would not ordinarily be prepared to learn in this class without help, and that it is substantial enough for a notebook and a seminar-style presentation.
Project presentations will begin around the halfway point of the semester. The second half of the course will be devoted to student presentations, questions, and discussion.
Sign up for a presentation date between Oct 21 and Dec 7 by making a GitHub pull request. We may be able to have two or three projects on a date, and teams of two are allowed. Students who present earlier in the semester will receive a little extra credit for being courageous.
Dates follow the MIT Registrar calendar.
| # | Day | Date | Lecturer | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | W | Sep 9 | Edelman | |
| 2 | M | Sep 14 | Edelman | |
| 3 | W | Sep 16 | Edelman | |
| 4 | M | Sep 21 | Urschel | |
| 5 | W | Sep 23 | Edelman | |
| 6 | M | Sep 28 | Edelman | |
| 7 | W | Sep 30 | Urschel | |
| 8 | M | Oct 5 | ||
| 9 | W | Oct 7 | ||
| M | Oct 12 | Indigenous Peoples Day - holiday | ||
| 10 | T | Oct 13 | Monday schedule of classes | |
| 11 | W | Oct 14 | ||
| 12 | M | Oct 19 | ||
| 13 | W | Oct 21 | Student presentations | |
| 14 | M | Oct 26 | Student presentations | |
| 15 | W | Oct 28 | Student presentations | |
| 16 | M | Nov 2 | Student presentations | |
| 17 | W | Nov 4 | Student presentations | |
| 18 | M | Nov 9 | Student presentations | |
| W | Nov 11 | Veterans Day - holiday | ||
| 19 | M | Nov 16 | Student presentations | |
| 20 | W | Nov 18 | Student presentations | |
| 21 | M | Nov 23 | Student presentations | |
| W | Nov 25 | Class canceled for Thanksgiving | ||
| 22 | M | Nov 30 | Student presentations | |
| 23 | W | Dec 2 | Student presentations | |
| 24 | M | Dec 7 | Student presentations | |
| 25 | W | Dec 9 | Class party |