Math 104.01, Spring 1999
Linear Algebra
General Information
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Instructor:
David Smith
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Class meetings
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Monday and Wednesday, Room 205 Physics, 1:10-2:00 pm
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Friday, Room 032 Physics, 1:10-2:00 pm
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Office hours
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Mon 2:15-4:15 and by appointment.
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To make an appointment, send an e-mail request or call 660-2823.
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Instructor absences
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Your instructor will be out of town on the following dates:
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January 9-17, Annual meetings of the American Mathematical Society and the
Mathematical Association of America, San Antonio, Texas
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February 17-21, National Advisory Panel, Quality Indicators in Undergraduate
Mathematics Education Project, Del Mar, California
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March 21-23, Visiting Committee, U. S. Naval Academy Mathematics Department,
Annapolis, Maryland
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A substitute will cover classes on January 13, February 17, February 19 and
March 22. The lab on January 15 will be unsupervised. No classes will be
cancelled. For more information on the first week of classes, click
here.
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Textbook
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Class e-mail list
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You can communicate with all members of your section by sending e-mail to
mth104-01@acpub.duke.edu. In
particular, this is a good way to ask or answer a question or to discuss
a topic of interest to the class. You will also get messages from the instructor
this way.
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Reading Assignments
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Much of what you will learn in this course will not come from lectures. There
is a reading assignment for most class days. You are expected to study those
assignments before the corresponding class day and to ask questions
about anything you don't understand. Expect the reading to be hard work.
You should work with others in the class when you are studying and working
on homework. You can ask questions of classmates or instructor -- in person,
by phone, or by e-mail.
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Writing Assignments
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You will be expected to use what you have learned in the University Writing
Course (and elsewhere) to write clear, direct English prose about your thought
processes and your work on various sorts of problems. You will find it useful
to read
A
Guide to Writing in Mathematics Classes by Annalisa Crannell (Franklin
and Marshall College), which you can access on the World Wide Web from this
page, from the course home page, and from the course syllabus page.
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Homework Assignments
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Homework problems will be assigned in a weekly plan posted on the course
web page. Your solutions will be collected and graded on a weekly cycle.
No late homework will be graded without a dean's excuse.
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You can't do a good job on a whole week's homework if you start on it the
night before it is due. Use the daily assignments as a guide to when you
should start each problem. If, after working the assignment, either you do
not understand the material or you are not proficient at working the problems,
then you should work additional problems on your own. You are encouraged
to work on homework in groups, but your written answers must be in your own
words.
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Laboratory Work
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This class will meet in the computer laboratory (Physics 032) every Friday
to begin a weekly project in teams of two. You cannot afford to miss lab
for any reason other than illness or an excused absence -- and you must make
up missed labs, on your own time and possibly without a teammate. The lab
work is intimately related with work in class, and 35% of your grade is based
on the lab.
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Lab submissions are due on Wednesday each week. To submit your lab work,
first be sure both names are in the file, near the top, where they
are easily found. Then mail the final version of your file to your instructor,
as well as to your partner (copy yourself, if you wish). Your instructor
will use a Reply To All to send it back, so the comments and grades will
go to both partners. In particular, if both your Math 104 address and your
acpub address are on the submitted file, the graded file will go both places.
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For instructions for getting started in the lab, click
here.
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For additional information and suggestions relating to lab work, click
here.
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For additional information on Math Department computing facilities, click
here.
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Tests
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All tests will be open-book. No make-ups will be given without a dean's excuse.
There will be
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two scheduled take-home tests (starting dates February 24 and April 7), and
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a two-part final exam.
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The first part of the final will be an end-of-term essay of fixed length
on a specified topic. The topic will be announced on April 19, and the essay
will be due in the last class period on April 28.
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The second part of the final will be given at the regularly scheduled exam
time, Friday, May 7, 7-10 pm.
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Electronic journal
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Each student will keep an electronic journal consisting of at least two
paragraphs per week. The object of the journal is to record how things are
going, what you learned during the week (sketchy detail is all right), what
seems to be working well, what's not working, points on which you may be
confused, observations about how your group functions or doesn't function,
and so on. These possible topics need not all be discussed every week --
just whatever may be important at the time. A journal is an important tool
for personal growth, but it also gives you a way to help the instructor make
mid-course corrections in the way the course is conducted.
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Journal entries will not be graded for content, but they are required for
a small portion of the course grade (see below). The weekly due date is Friday
(starting January 22, omitting only the last week of classes), but earlier
submissions are acceptable -- pick a convenient time, which may be different
each week. Submit your journal entries to your instructor by e-mail with
a subject line including the word "journal."
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Some journal entries may call for a response or a comment -- these will be
handled by return e-mail. Some may contain significant insights that should
be shared with the class. In that case, all personal identifying information
will be stripped out, and the insight will be posted on the class bulletin
board.
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Team Work
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Lab work will be done by teams of two students. The instructor will make
team assignments and will change them periodically. When a team's work is
submitted by e-mail, the name of each participating member must be in the
file. If a member was not present during the lab session or did not participate
fully, then that person's name must be omitted. Separate reports from missing
partners generally will not be accepted except by prior arrangement with
the instructor.
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You will find useful information about working in groups in
Ten
Guidelines for Students Doing Group Work in Mathematics by Anne E.
Brown, Indiana University South Bend. The first half of this document is
directed to instructors, but the second half -- the list of guidelines --
is for you.
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Cooperation
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The
Undergraduate
Honor Code does not preclude cooperation, except when a particular task
is designated to be done without assistance. Learning is a cooperative activity
-- and the "real world" demands workers who have learned to cooperate in
order to solve more substantial problems than individuals can solve working
alone. Therefore, some tasks in this course will be assigned to designated
groups, and such tasks will receive a group grade.
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Open- vs. closed-book activities
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The "real world" is, among other things, a very large collection of "open
books". Success does not require memorizing the contents of those "books"
but rather understanding how to use available resources in an intelligent
way. Closed-book tests do little to measure such understanding, so all activities
in this course -- including tests -- will be open-book.
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Language
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The language of communication in this course is English -- written, spoken,
and read. You should expect to be using all three forms of English communication
often.
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Calculator
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For classroom work and homework it is useful to have a calculator that is
capable of doing matrix and vector operations.
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Grading
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There is no intellectually respectable justification for pretending that
understanding of mathematics (or any other subject) can be measured by numerical
point scales. University policy requires that overall performance in a course
be assigned a letter grade; as indications of progress along the way, each
graded activity will also be assigned a letter grade relative to the instructor's
expectations for that activity. Such grading is sometimes called "subjective."
The alternative to subjective grading is not "objective" -- it's
arbitrary.
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Semester Grades
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Your letter grades from the different components of the course will be weighted
approximately in the following way. Your instructor will use the weighted
average and his own best judgment to assign the grade you have earned.
Team work |
|
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Individual work |
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Lab reports (13) |
35% |
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Homework |
15% |
Class participation |
5% |
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Electronic journal |
5% |
|
|
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Take-home tests (2) |
20% |
|
|
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Final Exam |
20% |
Total |
40% |
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Total |
60% |
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Assistance
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Your instructor can be called at any reasonable time, and you can send an
e-mail query at any time.
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Use your instructor's office hours.
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Don't let confusion go unresolved. Help is available, but you have to ask,
or no one will know you need it. It is a sign of strength -- not weakness
-- to know when you need help and to ask for it.
David A. Smith
<das@math.duke.edu>
Last modified: January 26, 1999