Lists of mathematics topics cover a variety of topics related tomathematics. Some of these lists link to hundreds of articles; some link only to a few. The template below includes links to alphabetical lists of all mathematical articles. This article brings together the same content organized in a manner better suited for browsing.Lists cover aspects of basic and advanced mathematics, methodology, mathematical statements, integrals, general concepts, mathematical objects, and reference tables.They also cover equations named after people, societies, mathematicians, journals, and meta-lists.
The purpose of this list isnot similar to that of theMathematics Subject Classification formulated by theAmerican Mathematical Society. Many mathematics journals ask authors of research papers and expository articles to list subject codes from the Mathematics Subject Classification in their papers. The subject codes so listed are used by the two major reviewing databases,Mathematical Reviews andZentralblatt MATH. This list has some items that would not fit in such a classification, such aslist of exponential topics andlist of factorial and binomial topics, which may surprise the reader with the diversity of their coverage.
This branch is typically taught in secondary education or in the first year of university.
As a rough guide, this list is divided into pure and applied sections although in reality, these branches are overlapping and intertwined.
Algebra includes the study of algebraic structures, which are sets and operations defined on these sets satisfying certain axioms. The field of algebra is further divided according to which structure is studied; for instance, group theory concerns an algebraic structure calledgroup.
Calculus studies the computation of limits, derivatives, and integrals of functions of real numbers, and in particular studies instantaneous rates of change.Analysis evolved from calculus.
Geometry is initially the study of spatial figures like circles and cubes, though it has been generalized considerably.Topology developed from geometry; it looks at those properties that do not change even when the figures are deformed by stretching and bending, like dimension.
Combinatorics concerns the study ofdiscrete (and usuallyfinite) objects. Aspects include "counting" the objects satisfying certain criteria (enumerative combinatorics), deciding when the criteria can be met, and constructing and analyzing objects meeting the criteria (as incombinatorial designs andmatroid theory), finding "largest", "smallest", or "optimal" objects (extremal combinatorics andcombinatorial optimization), and findingalgebraic structures these objects may have (algebraic combinatorics).
Logic is the foundation that underliesmathematical logic and the rest of mathematics. It tries to formalize valid reasoning. In particular, it attempts to define what constitutes a proof.
The branch of mathematics deals with the properties and relationships of numbers, especially positive integers.Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss said, "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences—and number theory is the queen of mathematics."Number theory also studies the natural, or whole, numbers. One of the central concepts in number theory is that of theprime number, and there are many questions about primes that appear simple but whose resolution continues to elude mathematicians.
Adifferential equation is an equation involving an unknown function and its derivatives.
In adynamical system, a fixed rule describes the time dependence of a point in a geometrical space. The mathematical models used to describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a pipe, or the number of fish each spring in a lake are examples of dynamical systems.
Mathematical physics is concerned with "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories".1
The fields of mathematics and computing intersect both incomputer science, the study of algorithms and data structures, and inscientific computing, the study of algorithmic methods for solving problems in mathematics, science, and engineering.
Information theory is a branch ofapplied mathematics andsocial science involving the quantification ofinformation. Historically, information theory was developed to find fundamental limits on compressing and reliablycommunicating data.
Signal processing is the analysis, interpretation, and manipulation ofsignals. Signals of interest includesound,images, biological signals such asECG,radar signals, and many others. Processing of such signals includesfiltering, storage and reconstruction, separation of information fromnoise,compression, andfeature extraction.
Probability theory is the formalization and study of the mathematics of uncertain events or knowledge. The related field ofmathematical statistics developsstatistical theory with mathematics.Statistics, the science concerned with collecting and analyzing data, is an autonomous discipline (and not a subdiscipline ofapplied mathematics).
Game theory is a branch ofmathematics that usesmodels to study interactions with formalized incentive structures ("games"). It has applications in a variety of fields, includingeconomics,anthropology,political science,social psychology andmilitary strategy.
Operations research is the study and use of mathematical models, statistics, and algorithms to aid in decision-making, typically with the goal of improving or optimizing the performance of real-world systems.
A mathematical statement amounts to aproposition or assertion of some mathematical fact, formula, or construction. Such statements include axioms and the theorems that may be proved from them, conjectures that may be unproven or even unprovable, and also algorithms for computing the answers to questions that can be expressed mathematically.
Among mathematical objects are numbers, functions, sets, a great variety of things called "spaces" of one kind or another, algebraic structures such as rings, groups, or fields, and many other things.
Mathematicians study and research in all the different areas of mathematics. The publication of new discoveries in mathematics continues at an immense rate in hundreds of scientific journals, many of them devoted to mathematics and many devoted to subjects to which mathematics is applied (such as theoreticalcomputer science andtheoretical physics).
In calculus, theintegral of a function is a generalization of area, mass, volume, sum, and total. The following pages list the integrals of many different functions.
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| Number theory | |
| Topology | |
| Applied | |
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