Instructor:
Professor Julian Palmore
Department of Mathematics and ACDIS
Office: 377 Altgeld Hall
Phone: 217-333-0407
Fax: 217-333-9576
email: palmore@uiuc.edu

Course Prerequisite: UI quantitative reasoning requirement and consent of instructor
Credit: 3 hours

Preventive defense is a new defense strategy. The strategy is one of attempting to forecast defense problems in advance and defuse the possibility of attack before an attack occurs. The course will introduce students to a quantitative study of the security problems that the United States faces with respect to attack at home by weapons of mass destruction and strategies for preventive defense. Potential weapons of mass destruction to be defended against include chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents. Cyber attacks are also considered because the consequences of a cyber attack may be extremely serious. Such consequences include disrupting air traffic control systems and parts of a power grid and causing chaos in financial institutions. Part of the material is in common with another offering under the Technology and Security rubric: "Protecting Populations and Critical Infrastructure against Terrorist Attack."

The various mathematical topics will be included in the course content. There will be several applications.

1. applications of probability for risk assessment and game theory for strategy development,
2. a survey of mathematics of ballistic flight over intercontinental distances and cruise missile flight over short distances,
3. dispersion of aerosols to estimate the hazards and consequences of release of chemical and biological agents,
4. statistics of historical data, and
5. assessment of the likelihood of various threats and responses.

Math 267 Syllabus

Reference List

Reading List