Hey all, I''m contemplating taking a course called "Intro to q-Analysis" at Bates College for the winter semester. Here is the course summary:

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MATH 365C. Introduction to q-Analysis. Students work with two simple notions, permutations and partitions. Each is worth examining by itself, but there are also important relationships between them. We look at all the rearrangements (permutations) of a sequence of numbers and ways in which they differ. Permutations are closely tied to a certain kind of finite product. Similar products (finite and infinite) and corresponding series are intimately connected with partitions—ways of writing a positive integer as as sum of positive integers

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My question is : what the hell is this? Is it worth taking? I enjoy calculus and linear algebra - is q-analysis related to either at all? And how would q-analysis relate to computer programming, if at all? Thanks

Try this.