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The Math Modeling II Main Page
Mathematical Modeling II with
Calculus BC (MMII/BC for short) is Polytechnic
School's highest level mathematics class. Originally created in 1987
by Poly math teacher Richard Sisley, MMII/BC has been taught for the past
16 years by Steve
Robinson, who has revised and updated the course several times during
that period. The prerequisite for MMII/BC is a course called, not surprisingly,
Mathematical Modeling I with Calculus AB (MMI/AB), also a Sisley creation.
In that course, junior level students are introduced to mathematical modeling
with differential equations and complete the AB Calculus syllabus of the
College Board. The MMII/BC course is designed to build upon this knowledge
by extending the modeling process to discrete dynamical systems, through
the study of difference equations. Difference equations are the discrete
counterpart to the continuous differential equations of the calculus.
During the last third of the twentieth century, research in discrete dynamical
systems played a major role in the development of chaos theory and fractal
geometry. Steve Robinson became very excited about these new developments
and spent four summers, from 1993 through 1996, studying chaos theory
and fractal geometry with some of the leading researchers in these fields.
The first semester of the MMII/BC course consists of material developed
by Robinson during these four summers and afterward. The second semester
of the course is devoted to completion of the BC Calculus syllabus of
the College Board. This web site was created to serve students as a supplementary
guide to the course as well as to encourage them to adventure into areas
not covered in class. The navigation buttons on the left of each page
lead to other pages in this site, while those on the right will take you
to other sites which deal with the topics discussed in class. You may
first want to go to the page called "About This
Site" to get an overall view of what you will find on these pages.
Text only version of this site.
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