Quantitative and Mathematical Methods

Sciences Po, Fall 2012 (archive)
Euro-American Campus, Reims

Level 1 groups: François Briatte
Level 2 groups: Max Fathi

What you get in this course:

• essential notions in calculus, probability and statistics
• small-scale, abstract problems that imitate real-world parameters
• three exams to verify that you are working on improving your skills

The course is pencil-and-paper only.

Please refer to the course syllabus for details.

Introduction

Read CK-12 Calc (1)

1. Notation
2. Functions

Calculus

Read CK-12 Calc (2-3 & 6)

1. Exponentials and logarithms
2. Derivatives
3. Review
4. Exam answers and first problem sheet

Example applications:

• calculation of growth rates
• calculation of compound interest
• calculation of exponential decay

Probability

Read CK-12 Adv Prob & Stats (3–6)

1. Random variables
2. Probability distributions
3. Review
4. Exam answers and first problem sheet

Example applications:

• likelihood of a discrete event
• likelihood of a binomial variable
• likelihood of a Bernoulli trial

Statistics

Read CK-12 Adv Prob & Stats (7–8)

1. Confidence intervals
2. Significance tests

Example applications:

• assess the normality of a distribution
• calculate a 95% confidence interval
• read a two-tailed t-test (example output)

Links

• GNU Octave and Sage – free, open-source mathematical software
• Overleaf and Texmaker — typeset documents and equations in LaTeX
• Wolfram Alpha — solves and plots functions, among many things

Links are not part of the revision content.