Principles of Mathematics and Physics with Elements of Biostatistics and Computer Science

The course provides the student with basic knowledge of mathematics, physics, and elements of bioinformatics and statistics. The mathematics and informatics part provides basic concepts of the theory of regular real-valued functions of real variable, the fundamentals of statistics and probability theory. The physics part provides knowledge in the fields of mechanics, fluids, thermodynamics, electrostatics and magnetism, useful for quantitatively solving simple problems, qualitatively describing physical phenomena related to the biological field, and understanding the principles of operation of some laboratory instrumentations.

At the end of the course the student should be able to: 1) Analyze real-valued functions of real variable, both from the point of view of computation and description of elementary models; 2) Apply the basic tools of statistics and probability calculus; 3) Describe different physical quantities (scalars and vectors) and their units of measurement; perform conversions, equivalences and vectorial calculus. 4) Apply basic principles of dynamics and thermodynamics, definitions of energy (kinetic and potential) and work, conditions for conservation of energy, basic laws for motion of fluids and charged particles in electric and magnetic fields. 5) Set up and quantitatively solve a physical problem from simple assumptions and following the same scheme used in class. 6) Evaluate the reliability of values of physical quantities and quantitative solutions to problems. 7) Identify the conditions of use and limitations of some laboratory instruments.