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PMATH 352Complex Analysis

Units
0.50
Faculty
Mathematics
Subject
Pure Mathematics

When it runs

  1. F24
  2. W25
  3. S25
  4. F25
  5. W26
  6. S26
  7. F26
  8. W27
  9. S27

Ran in 4 of the last 7 terms. Winter 2027: scheduled, 2 lecture sections. Spring 2027: schedule not out yet.

Analytic functions, Cauchy-Riemann equations, Goursat's theorem, Cauchy's theorems, Morera's theorem, Liouville's theorem, maximum modulus principle, harmonic functions, Schwarz's lemma, isolated singularities, Laurent series, residue theorem.

Prerequisites

  • Must have completed at least 1 of the following:
    • MATH247 - Calculus 3 (Advanced Level) (0.50)
    • PMATH333 - Introduction to Real Analysis (0.50)

Antirequisites

None listed.

Leads to

Winter 2027 sections

Enrolment from UW Open Data, which can trail Quest by up to two days. Instructors and rooms: Schedule of Classes.
SectionClassEnrolledMeets
LEC 00157670 / 96MWF 10:30–11:20
LEC 701227146 / 9999Online or by arrangement

Resources

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Reviewed on UW Flow

92% liked it35% easy97% useful

From 50 ratings and 15 comments on UW Flow. The most helpful comments, quoted as written, without names. Read them all on UW Flow.

  • This course is black magic fuckery. I feel like I didn't understand this course at all. Everything felt so unintuitive. Assignments were brutally hard.

    Mar 2018 · didn’t like it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • Complex analysis is truly kind of magic. I enjoyed this course a lot, one of my favourite courses so far. Ignited more love for analysis in me.

    May 2017 · liked it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • Offering with Dr. Peterson S26.
    Most difficult course this term by far. Weekly assignments can be done quickly, but can take significantly longer if trying to fully grasp the concepts. Assignments were generally meant as practice for lecture content, but there were some cool results we had to prove as well (doubly periodic functions, brouwer fixed point theorem). Midterm was brutal - 60 average after a flat 13% curve, but the difficulty of the final felt much more reasonable.
    Peterson's lectures are pretty fast paced, which made it difficult to get intuition for many of the concepts. We were ~2 weeks ahead of schedule by the end of the term and had time to prove the Jordan Curve theorem.…

    Jun 2026 · liked itOn UW FlowRemove this

  • I thought 351 was more fun since it was more generalized/abstract. 352 is also more computational than 351. Developing intuition for complex functions is not easy (for me) and Bell's offering didn't provide a lot of intuition in lecture. Spending some time tinkering with desmos 3d and watching some youtube videos on complex analysis helped a lot tho.

    May 2026 · liked itOn UW FlowRemove this

  • Lovely course with Bell with fair assessments. Covers lots of astonishing results in the complex world, including possibly my favorite theorem of all time: a non-constant everywhere complex differentiable function misses at most one point in its image (Picard's little theorem.) The proofs are not so nice, but it's a small price to pay. My only real complaint is Bell's assignment style; he put hard problems that you wouldn't expect to normally be able to do yourself, but with many extremely telling hints. At times I felt that I was just filling in the missing pieces of the intended solution without gaining any intuition for how I would come up with the argument myself.

    Apr 2026 · liked itOn UW FlowRemove this

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

130 posts and comments in 105 threads mention PMATH 352, December 2011 to December 2024. Quoted word for word, newest first; each reply sits under the post and the comment that started its branch. Search r/uwaterloo for newer posts.

Fall 2024

Fall 2023

Advice for CS major who doesn’t like CS? 30 points, 7 comments

“I’m a 4A CS major who will graduate in 2025 on my current plan, but I haven’t found a job the past two years and throughout this degree I found I don’t even like CS that much. …”

u/Ok_Meeting_2592: “… \- pmath 352: Also offered in the spring and winter \- pmath 347: Offered Spring and Fall \- pmath 348: Offered Fall and Winter \- pmath 365: Offered Winter (take it next term!) \- pmath 450: Offered Winter \- 3 more 4xx pmath courses, depending on your interests. …”

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Winter 2023

Is taking math courses worth it for cs major? 8 points, 12 comments

“1B cs student here. Would you recommend taking more math courses beyond the compulsory ones? I've heard some ppl say that having a more in depth understanding of linear algebra helps with computer …”

u/dexdex21: “Yes, basic software development has little to do with that, but I still recommend taking some additional math courses. If you want to go into deeper fields in CS, it can be useful. …”

u/dexdex21: “… Analysis: math138->math237->pmath333->pmath351/352 (maybe also amath, but I'm not familiar) You can take one or two of math239, co250, stat231 in 2a to explore more areas. …”

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Pmath352 Notes 10 points, 0 comments

[deleted]: “Is there an overleaf file for the notes? The profs writing and notes is all over the place and it’s hard to actually write a clear set of notes in the class, so I was wondering if there was an overleaf made that had them?”

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Fall 2022

CO 250 -> CO 456 2 points, 3 comments

“i was wondering how important CO 250 is for CO 456, and if the instructor would at all consider overriding this prerequisite. …”

[deleted]: [deleted]

u/goataguero9: “i’ve taken MATH 245, PMATH 333, PMATH 352, PMATH 347, MATH 239. The only reason is that finding a place to fit CO 250 into my schedule seems pretty hard and I really wanted to take 456.”

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Spring 2022

Any good PMATH course recs for physics? 6 points, 6 comments

“I'm a second-year Math-Phys student looking for some good PMATH courses that accommodate theoretical physics and its framework well (for a minor). …”

u/Yu-Li: “As a mathematical physics major, I have taken pmath 321, 351, 352, 343. Planning to take 347 and 863”

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Mathematical physics Course blueprint recommendations 3 points, 21 comments

“Hey everyone, I’m going into the mathematical physics program at Waterloo next year and I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on a sort of blueprint I could follow for courses because …”

u/Yu-Li: “… 2B Fall: AMATH 231 AMATH 251 AMATH 271 PMATH 351 PHYS 358 3A Winter AMATH 353 AMATH 373 PMATH 352 PMATH 365 / PMATH 343 PHYS 242 First coop term Do your first research coop PHYS 342 3B Fall AMATH 473 AMATH 351 PMATH 347 PHYS 442 (get override request) PHYS 475 (get override …”

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Can any current math/CS students let me know their current course load and term? 10 points, 24 comments

“Which courses? And how difficult does it feel for you? Just trying to get an idea of how I should plan my courses.”

u/Fatdayuu: “4A Pure Math: 7 courses and it’s hard but not that hard (because I only have one Pmath course this term)”

u/Fatdayuu: “CS 480, CS 231, PMATH 352, ECON 102, AFM 102, STAT 444, ACTSC 445. I think the only hard courses for me in this term are CS480, STAT 444 and Actsc 445, other courses are trivial. I can take one course in coop, which is also trivial”

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Winter 2022

PMATH 352 Assignments 1 point, 5 comments

u/Psychological_Fig399: “would anyone that’s taken pmath 352 before or now be willing to share the assignments with me. im teaching myself complex analysis and would like to be able to gauge my understanding better :)”

u/Akinohana: “Why does it have to be PMATH 352 assignments? If you are using a standard textbook there should be a lot of exercises you can do for that purpose. Most assignment problems come from these places after all...”

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Check it elsewhere for Fall 2026

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