Mathematics

In the Master's specialisation in Mathematical Physics, you will be working at a frontier of mathematics that intersects with cutting edge research in physics.

Mathematicians can benefit from discoveries in physics and conversely mathematics is essential to further excel in the field of physics. History shows us as much. Mathematical physics began with Christiaan Huygens, who is honoured at Radboud University by naming the main building of the Faculty of Science after him. By combining Euclidean geometry and preliminary versions of calculus, he brought major advances to these areas of mathematics as well as to mechanics and optics. The second and greatest mathematical physicist in history, Isaac Newton, invented both the calculus and what we now call Newtonian mechanics and, from his law of gravity, was the first to understand planetary motion on a mathematical basis. In our Master's programme, we look at modern mathematical physics. The specialisation combines expertise in areas like functional analysis, geometry, and representation theory with research in, for example, quantum physics and integrable systems. You'll learn how the field is far more than creating mathematics in the service of physicists. It's also about being inspired by physical phenomena and delving into pure mathematics.

In this Master's specialisation, the focus is on learning to assess the security of existing ICT solutions, and on how to develop more secure solutions for the future.

Over the last decade, Radboud University has made a name for itself in this field both in and outside the country. The Digital Security Group revealed security flaws in the chip-card used for public transport smart cards like the London Oyster and the Dutch OV-chipkaart. Researchers of our group also found security vulnerabilities in commonly used car immobiliser systems. Currently, we're leading the development of the IRMA card, an ID card that will give users the freedom to only reveal those personal attributes that are needed for a certain purchase, and so better protect their personal data against misuse. Also, our experts are involved in the development of the Networking and Cryptography library (NaCl), a new easy-to-use, high-speed and high-security software library for network communication, encryption, decryption, digital signatures, etc. The Master's specialisation in Cyber Security will teach you how to contribute in the design of new security systems. You'll be able to draw up the security requirements of an application and discover where possible weaknesses lie. Main focus lies on topics as cryptographic codes, operating systems and protocol verification. But you'll a

This Master's specialisation will focus on understanding the fundamental mathematical concepts of computation and information in order to explore the potentials of computer science.

The theory of computation arose from concerns about the foundations of mathematics, and was developed in the work of Gödel, Church, Turing, Kleene and others. The actual building of computing machinery later was strongly influenced by this theoretical work. Computer science quickly grew into an independent field of study, but the relations with mathematics are still strong. Connections range from the use of mathematics to model the foundations all the way to the use of computers to help solve mathematical problems with a discrete component. The Master's specialisation places itself squarely in this exciting interdisciplinary area of deep theoretical developments. For this reason, the mathematics courses in this curriculum concentrate on algebra, general topology, logic, number theory and combinatorics. The computer science courses concentrate on formal methods, type theory, category theory, coalgebra and theorem proving. Not only is this Master's an excellent stepping-stone for students with ambitions in research, many of our graduates also work as systems builders, ICT specialists or ICT managers in the private sector or within government.

Equipping you with the tools and skills to become a professional intermediary between science and society whilst getting a broader societal perspective that will be useful in a scientific career.