Material Detail

This is a free online course offered by the Saylor Foundation.

'This course is an introduction to complex analysis, or the theory of the analytic functions of a complex variable.  Put differently, complex analysis is the theory of the differentiation and integration of functions that depend on one complex variable.  Such functions, beautiful on their own, are immediately useful in Physics, Engineering, and Signal Processing.  Because of the algebraic properties of the complex numbers and the inherently geometric flavor of complex analysis, this course will feel quite different from Real Analysis, although many of the same concepts, such as open sets, metrics, and limits will reappear.  Simply put, you will be working with lines and sets and very specific functions on the complex plane—drawing pictures of them and teasing out all of their idiosyncrasies.  You will again find yourself calculating line integrals, just as in multivariable calculus.  However, the techniques you learn in this course will help you get past many of the seeming dead-ends you ran up against in calculus.  Indeed, most of the definite integrals you will learn to evaluate in Unit 7 come directly from problems in physics and cannot be solved except through techniques from complex variables.

We will begin by studying the minimal algebraically closed extension of real numbers: the complex numbers.  The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra states that any non-constant polynomial with complex coefficients has a zero in the complex numbers.  This makes life in the complex plane very interesting.  We will also review a bit of the geometry of the complex plane and relevant topological concepts, such as connectedness.

In Unit 2, we will study differential calculus in the complex domain.  The concept of analytic or holomorphic function will be introduced as complex differentiability in an open subset of the complex numbers.  The Cauchy-Riemann equations will establish a connection between analytic functions and differentiable functions depending on two real variables.  In Unit 3, we will review power series, which will be the link between holomorphic and analytic functions.  In Unit 4, we will introduce certain special functions, including exponentials and trigonometric and logarithmic functions. We will consider the Möbius Transformation in some detail.

In Units 5, 6, and 7 we will study Cauchy Theory, as well as its most important applications, including the Residue Theorem.  We will compute Laurent series, and we will use the Residue Theorem to evaluate certain integrals on the real line which cannot be dealt with through methods from real variables alone.  Our final unit, Unit 8, will discuss harmonic functions of two real variables, which are functions with continuous second partial derivatives that satisfy the Laplace equation, conformal mappings, and the Open Mapping Theorem.'

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