Courses

MATH 175: INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOLOGY

Content: This course gives a historical introduction to Cryptology and introduces a number of mathematical ideas and results involved in the development and analysis of secret codes. While the mathematical subjects treated include enumeration, probability, and some statistics, the bulk of the course is devoted to elementary number theory, with the goal of understanding public key encryption.

Structure: The course has two components, the classroom component and the computer component. The classroom component meets three days a week, and will be driven by worksheets given to students in class. The instructor will introduce each worksheet with some background material (definitions, motivation), and then students will complete the worksheets in groups of 2 or 3. Each worksheet consists of a list of problems that students attempt to solve together during class over the course of a few class periods. As students solve problems from the worksheet, they will be asked to explain their solutions to the rest of the class.

In the computer lab, various discovery-based projects are designed to allow students to explore the ideas developed in the classroom.

Materials: The detailed description "Inquiry Based Learning in Cryptology" of the course by Kyle Petersen provides more information about the course and inquiry based teaching in general. For other course materials, please contact Ralf Spatzier (spatzier@umich.edu).

Math 175 - Introduction to Cryptology (link to the "Courses" page)