Math 221 Course Webpage

Linear Algebra and Applications

Fall 2017, Duke University

General information

Goal: Students will become proficient in both using and understanding the theory and algorithms of linear algebra and will learn how to write rigorous mathematical arguments.

Lectures: Wednesday and Friday, 13:25 – 14:40, Physics Building 119

Text: Linear Algebra: A Geometric Approach, by Ted Shifrin and Malcolm Adams, second edition.

Contact information for the Instructor

Name: Professor Ezra Miller
Address: Mathematics Department, Duke University, Box 90320, Durham, NC 27708-0320
Office: Physics 209
Phone: (919) 660-2846
Email: ezramath.duke.edu
Webpage: https://math.duke.edu/people/ezra-miller
Course webpage: you're already looking at it... but it's https://services.math.duke.edu/~ezra/221/221.html
Office hours: Tuesday 14:30 – 15:30 & Friday 12:00 – 13:15, in Physics 209

Help Room

Course description

Assignments

• Weekly homework will be collected and graded.
• There will be two in-class exams:
  • Thursday 6 October
  • Thursday 17 November
• There will be a final exam: Saturday 16 December, 19:00–22:00 in Physics 119
• Quizzes may be given if homework performance lags.

• Tentative due dates for the homework assignments this semester are listed in the table below.
• You should work on the homework for a section immediately after the class in which it is covered.
• Homework for the sections covered in a week will be due and collected at the beginning of the following Tuesday's class.
• Late homework will not be accepted.
• Missed quizzes or exams: in general there will be no make-ups, but some accommodation may be possible in one of the following four situations: personal emergencies or tragedies, an incapacitating illness, a religious holiday, or varsity athletic participation. Please visit these web-pages now to familiarize yourself with the procedures.
• Collaboration on homework is encouraged while you discuss the search for solutions, but when it comes time to write them down, the work you turn in must be yours alone: you are not allowed to consult anyone else's written solution, and you are not allowed to share your written solutions. (It is very easy to tell when solutions have been copied or written together.) If you collaborate, you must indicate—on the homework page—who your collaborators were.
• Collaboration of any sort on quizzes, in-class exams, and the final exam is not permitted: you must work completely independently without giving or receiving help from others.
• Students are expected to adhere to the Duke Community Standard. You must reaffirm your committment to these standards on all work.
• If a student is responsible for academic dishonesty on a graded item in this course, then the student will have an opportunity to admit the infraction and, if approved by the Office of Student Conduct, resolve it directly through a faculty-student resolution agreement; the terms of that agreement would then dictate the grading response to the assignment at issue. If the student is found responsible through the Office of Student Conduct and the infraction is not resolved by a faculty-student resolution agreement, then the student will receive a score of zero for that assignment, and the instructor reserves the right to further reduce the final grade for the course by one or more letter grades—possibly to a failing grade—at the discretion of the instructor.
• Computer policy: You may use a computational aid for the homework but I recommend avoiding it as much as possible, particularly since electronic devices of all sorts are not allowed on quizzes, in-class exams, and the final exam. Portable electronic devices that are visible or audible during exams will be confiscated until the exam period ends.
• All submitted work (including quizzes and exams, in addition to homework) must be written neatly and legibly. Instead of erasing please use a single line crossout.
• If a question requires more than a single expression or equation, your response must be phrased in complete sentences.
• The logic of a proof must be completely clear for full credit.
• Staple multiple-page submissions or they will be returned ungraded. Paper clips do not suffice; pages can and often do become separated.

Homework schedule

If a lecture or assignment hasn't been posted, and you think it should have been, then please do email me. Sometimes I encounter problems (such nas, for example, the department's servers going down) while posting assignments; other times, I might simply have forgotten to copy the updated files into the appropriate directory, or to set the permissions properly.

Read and study the text carefully before attempting the assignments. Make sure you fully understand the given proofs and examples; note that there are examples in the text similar to most of the homework problems. The material in gray shaded boxes consists of definitions; learn them precisely. (Often when students say they do not know how to do a problem it is because they don't know the definitions of the terms in the problem.) The material in blue shaded boxes introduces points of logic and techniques of proof that you will find helpful in writing your arguments. If you have trouble understanding something in the text after working on it for a while, then see me in office hours or e-mail me.

Grading scheme

• 15% Homework
• 25% Midterm #1
• 25% Midterm #2
• 35% Final exam

Links

• list of all courses given in the Math Department in Fall 2017.
• Official University calendar for academic year 2017–2018.
• Fundamental University policies concerning academic dishonesty and related matters.

• Ezra Miller's Math homepage
  
• Ezra Miller's personal home page
  
• Duke Mathematics

The fine print

ezramath.duke.edu
Wed Aug 30 22:26:21 EDT 2017