MATH 303
Mathematics of (Mostly Olympic) Sport
AKA: “Mathematical Journeys III”

INSTRUCTOR:	John Stockie Office: K 10518 E-mail: jstockie  [at]  sfu.ca This page: http://www.sfu.ca/~jstockie/teaching/math303/
CANVAS PAGE:	All course materials are here
CLASS TIMES:	Monday      14:30-15:20, BLU 10021 Thursday    14:30-16:20, BLU 10021 Note: Lectures are in-person only, and no video recordings will be provided.
MY OFFICE HOUR:	Thursday 11:30-13:00
TUTORIAL:	Your TA is Mahdi Salehzadeh (msa272 [at] sfu.ca) who will run the weekly tutorials:       Thursday (D102)    12:30-13:20    WMC 2503       Thursday (D101)    13:30-14:20    WMC 3253
PREREQUISITES:	MATH 152 or 155 or 158; MATH 232 or MATH 240. MACM 202 or 203 or 204 is recommended (or equivalent computing experience).
RECOMMENDED READING:	There is no required textbook for this course. However, there is one inexpensive book that I am assigning as recommended reading, and that you may be interested in purchasing: The Hidden Mathematics of Sport, by Rob Eastaway and John Haigh (Portico Books, 2021).     [Amazon] This book is easy reading compared to the usual math textbook. It consists of short chapters that each focus on quantitative aspects of a single sport, and it is mostly equation-free except for a short appendix containing some of the math details. I will post extracts from this book on Canvas, which is why purchasing the book is optional. In lectures, I will dive into the mathematical aspects in more depth, often using extra material taken from three books held on reserve in the SFU Library: Figuring Sport, by G. Cohen and N. de Mestre (MathSport & ANZIAM, 2007). The Mathematics of Projectiles in Sport, by N. de Mestre (Cambridge University Press, 1990). Mathematics and Sport, by L.E. Sadovskii and A.L. Sadovskii (American Mathematical Society, 1993).
HOMEWORK:	Homework assignments will be due roughly every two weeks on Thursdays at 11:00pm sharp! You must submit each homework assignment on-line, in PDF/JPG/PNG format, using the personalized link you will receive in an email from Crowdmark. If your assignment is late, then you will receive a mark of zero with NO exceptions. To account for any unexpected circumstances that might cause you to be late or miss an assignment (including medical, personal, religious, internet connectivity, and other reasons) I will automatically omit the lowest homework mark from everyone's final grade calculation. No other accommodations will be provided.

OUTLINE:

This course studies applications of mathematics to sport, with an emphasis on Olympic sporting events. Lectures are organized around "modules", each of which focuses on questions related to a particular sport or a common theme that underlies several sports. Examples include: Who really won the 2024 Summer (or 2022 Winter) Olympics? What are the limits of human performance? And will women ever outperform men? Who is the fastest person on the planet? Is there an optimal technique for throwing a discus/javelin/shot? Is the judging system in figure skating a fair one? Does the Olympic triathlon penalize strong swimmers? Is there really a "home ice advantage" in a Stanley Cup playoff series? What is the optimal rower configuration in the rowing fours and eights? These and other questions will be tackled using a variety of mathematical techniques, including calculus, linear algebra, probability, statistics, and game theory. Examples will be illustrated in class using software packages such as Microsoft Excel, Matlab, and the code will be distributed to students for their own experimentation.

MARKING SCHEME:

Homework:   30% (bi-weekly, best 4 out of 5) Midterm Test:   30% (in class, Oct 24) Group Project:    40% (Nov 28: poster presentations, Dec 2: written projects due)