Office: G3.07 Email: Address: Department of Mathematics The University of Waikato Private Bag 3105 Hamilton 3240 New Zealand Phone: +64-7-838 4466 (extn. 8326) +64-7-838 4713 (dept. office) Fax: +64-7-838 4666

Dr Sean Oughton Associate Professor

Teaching:	Notes are not a substitute for attending lectures. For articles and videos about jobs that you can get with a maths degree click here. First year: MATH101. The course outline, a reading guide to the chapter sections we cover, and a version of the notes roughly similiar to the class notes are available here. Some other course handouts may also be available. You can also search the web for first year calculus notes and tools. Some examples are: The calculus.org site (animations, notes, ...). Garrett's lecture notes (pdf file). An online quiz from Massey University to see if you're ready for first-year calculus (choose the 'Test my skills' option). Highly recommended. The Massey University online 'notes' for their first-year calculus course are also good. Second year: Third year: MATH331: Applied Maths -- pdf version of something similar to the lecture notes Fourth/Fifth year: MATH542: Partial Differential Equations -- pdf version of most of lecture notes   Honours, Masters, PhD supervision in fluid dynamics, especially turbulence magnetohydrodynamics space physics (All available as theory and/or computer simulation projects. See next section for overviews of these topics.)
Research:	My primary research interests are in the fields of hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, especially in connection with space physics applications. Hydrodynamics and MHD are fancy ways of saying fluids which don't conduct electricity and fluids which do. Most of the matter in the universe does conduct electricity well. On the earth, the oceans and atmosphere usually aren't so good at it. More details (including movies) are available here. . . Some pictures of turbulence in art, the earth, and space are collected here List of publications/preprints OnlineJ .
Links:	University of Waikato Library Catalogue MathSciNet ISI Web of Knowledge/Science

Some related space phyics sites

• Advice for graduate students: I,   II,   III,   IV
        Nature article on key features of a good mentor: Nature 447, 791-797 (14 June 2007) doi: 10.1038/447791a
  

• The Heliosphere in the Kitchen Sink:
          I: Shock waves in your sink.
          II: What does your sink have to do with outer space?
  

• Videos of Armchair physics with Richard Feynman (YouTube: `Fun to Imagine')
  
• Space Physics Resources Catalogue: I,   II
  

• Latest pictures of the Sun from the SOHO satellite.
  
• Comic books about the Solar Wind, Cosmic Rays, Ozone Hole, Northern Lights, ...
       
  
• SOHO ``hot shots''. Thumbnail stories of research results from SOHO.
  
• suntrek.org. Resource site for teaching school children about the sun and its effect on the Earth. Projects, lesson plans, ...
  
• Physics InSight slide shows (from the APS). Career info, etc.
  
• One of the main NASA solar image sites.
  
• Movie of a `journey through the solar system'.
  
• NASA's astronomy 'Picture of the day'.
  
• A kick-off point for solar physics stuff.
  

• Space science overviews (Astronomy, Physics, Spaceflight,...)
  
• A journey through the magnetosphere.
  
• Sun Earth Plan: Cool pictures and information on space science, including an `ask the experts' section.
  
• Introduction to astronomy and space physics. Pictures and basics.
  
• AGU Space physics and aeronomy public outreach.
  

• Videos, images, etc of cool fluid things. Interactive tools, ...
  

• UK MHD groups (links to their home pages)
  

• Space Weather Homepage
  
• Bartol Research Institute Homepage
  
• High Altitude Observatory, Boulder Colorado. (Includes some tutorial information on solar physics, plus nice images.)
  
• Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) Homepage
  
• NASA Homepage
  
• MIT Space Weather Videos
  
  

Just for fun...

• Civilisation is built on physics (and maths). Or why you should study the `hard' subjects (by Boris Johnson).
  
• Why things happen (or don't). Entropy in a nutshell.
  
• Recent earthquakes, volcano activity,...
  
• And, finally, for some quality musical geek humour check out this video clip by `Finite Simple Group (of order two)'.