The dynamics of an undamped pendulum illustrate a two-dimensional state space of a continuous dynamical system.
Highlighted pages
- An introduction to conservative vector fields
An introduction to the concept of path-independent or conservative vector fields, illustrated by interactive graphics. - Developing an initial model to describe bacteria growth
By analyzing some data and hypothesizing rules for cell division, we develop a discrete dynamical system for the growth of a population of bacteria. - An introduction to parametrized curves
An introduction to how a vector-valued function of a single variable can be viewed as parametrizing a curve. Interactive graphics illustrate the way in which the function maps an interval onto a curve. - The components of the curl
Illustration of the meaning behind the components of the curl. - Spherical coordinates
Illustration of spherical coordinates with interactive graphics.
Recent pages
- A birth-death process
Added April 13, 2022 - A stochastic process introduction
Added April 13, 2022 - An introduction to neural coding and decoding
Added April 3, 2022 - More new items
Highlighted applets
The dynamics of an undamped pendulum illustrate a two-dimensional state space of a continuous dynamical system.
Illustration of the Cartesian coordinates of a movable three-dimensional point
Welcome to Math Insight
The Math Insight web site is a collection of pages and applets designed to shed light on concepts underlying a few topics in mathematics. The focus is on qualitative description rather than getting all technical details precise. Many of the pages were designed to be read even before students attend lecture on the topic, so they are intended to be somewhat readable introductions to the basic ideas.
You can browse the pages organized into threads, which are sequences through a subset of pages organized by particular topics. An index can help you find pages discussing a particular term. You can also search through the pages, applets, and image captions. A few pages allow you to change the notation system used to render the mathematics.
We hope Math Insight can help you understand key mathematical concepts. We welcome comments on how we can improve it.