Math 104.01 (Linear Algebra)

Spring 1999

What to do while your instructor is out of town during the first week of classes:

  1. Go to class on Wednesday, January 13, at 1:10 pm in Room 205 Physics. Angelika Langen will be there to hand out important information, as well as a form for you to provide information about yourself. She will also have individual login ID's and passwords for using the department's computer system.
  2. Go to lab on Friday, January 15, at 1:10 pm in Room 032 Physics (not 205). The lab has enough seats to accommodate the entire class, with one computer for every two people. You are on your own for choosing and working with a partner to get through the tutorial lab. Everyone is expected to share with and help everyone else so that the entire class gets up to speed on using the lab. If you don't finish the lab by the end of the period, you can finish it on your own time -- at any networked computer on or off campus.
  3. (optional) Your instructor will be in the lab (032 Physics) at 1:10 on Monday, January 18 (MLK holiday) to assist anyone who has difficulty completing the lab.

Plan for Weeks 1 and 2

In our shortened Weeks 1 and 2 -- complicated by the instructor's absence for Week 1 -- we will

Some of what we take up at the start should be familiar from high school -- especially the idea of solving systems of linear equations. However, techniques learned in school for solving two or three equations are not adequate when the number of equations is larger, as will often be the case. By the end of Week 2 we will systematize a procedure that will work for any number of linear equations in any number of unknowns.

Our lab in Week 1 is an ungraded tutorial on using Netscape and Maple together as joint problem-solving tools. In particular, we will learn several ways to use Maple to solve linear systems. These tools will be explored more fully in the Week 2 lab, which will be the first graded lab activity.

To see the syllabus for Weeks 1 and 2 in a separate window, click here.  

Notes
  1. Your first homework papers will be turned in on Monday, January 25. Those papers should include solutions to all problems in the assignment below. The assignment dates are start dates.
  2. Your textbook has answers in the back of the book for odd-numbered exercises. If you look there first, you will subvert the learning process. If you know your answers are correct, you will never need to look there. In general, no solution will be given full credit unless you have written an explanation of why you know it is correct. (Exceptions to this rule are the exercises whose numbers appear in parentheses.) For example, an acceptable explanation for a solution of a linear system of equations is that you have substituted the proposed solutions into the original equations and found that they satisfy all of the equations simultaneously -- and you have to show your work. Two examples of unacceptable explanations:

    Some exercises ask explicitly for an explanation -- in this case, you are not being asked to do more than the exercise calls for.

  3. Lab 1 is a tutorial on using a Web browser and Maple. It will not be turned in or graded. Lab 2 is your first graded lab activity -- submit your completed Maple worksheet as an attachment to e-mail by the end of the day on Wednesday, January 27.
  4. Remember to submit your first journal entry by e-mail on Friday, January 22.

Assignments

David A. Smith <das@math.duke.edu>

Last modified: January 5, 1999