Math 124A, Summer 2010

Office Hours

My office hours this week will be Tuesday, 4-5pm and Wednesday, 10:30-11:30am, or by appointment. These office hours are all in my office in PDL C-20.

Review Problems for Monday

As I mentioned in class today, we'll spend our time in class on Monday reviewing some problems from old finals:

I recommend trying to solve these problems in advance; you'll get more out of the discussion if you do this.

As you study for the final, please email me any problems from past exams that you try to solve and would like to see in class. I'll try to present some of these on Wednesday. Have a nice weekend!

Change in Homework #7 Due Date

Homework assignment #7 is now due Monday, August 16th.

Homework #7

Homework assignment #7 is due Friday, August 13th. This is the last homework assignment!

Homework #6

Homework assignment #6 is due Friday, August 6th.

Midterm Solutions

Here are the solutions to yesterday's midterms, which we'll return to you tomorrow or the day after.

Homework #5

Homework assignment #5 is due Friday, July 30th.

Midterm

The midterm is next week on Tuesday, which is July 20th. Though I'll be lecturing on section 3.5 on Friday, the midterm will only cover through section 3.4. I'll have an extra office hour Monday from 9:30-10:30 to answer any questions you have. The best way to study is to do as many old midterms as you can; then come to my office hour on Monday and ask about the problems you couldn't get.

First Homework Assignment Back

Today in class I handed back the first homework assignment, and I've published the grades in Catalyst. The way the homework works is that you get five points for completing the entire assignment, and another five points for two or three problems that are graded in detail. On this assignment, our grader subtracted all five completeness points if you were missing any problems whatsoever. Future assignments won't be graded as harshly as this, and I promise that I won't let this affect your grade. If you end up on the border between two grades and the completeness points would have made the difference, I'll give you the higher grade, so please don't worry too much about it!

No Worksheet Tomorrow

There's no worksheet for tomorrow. Instead, you'll work on some old midterm questions. Yajun will write them on the board, so you don't need to print anything off.

Homework #4

Homework assignment #4 is due Monday, July 19 (a different day than usual). This assignment is much longer and harder than previous ones, so I'd advise getting started right away on it.

Grades on Catalyst

I've added a link to Catalyst on the side of the page now that you've started getting graded work back. You can see your quiz and worksheet scores there, and you can see the average score on the first quiz. It's probably worthwhile to check periodically and make sure your scores were entered correctly. We'll start getting your homework back to you next week. My apologies for the delay.

Tuesday's Worksheet, Calendar Update

In Tuesday's quiz section, you'll get back your quizzes and you'll do Worksheet 3; remember to print it out and bring it in. Also, I've put up the class calendar all the way through the end of week 5, and I've posted last week's quiz there as well. Have a great weekend!

Homework #3

Homework assignment #3 is due Friday, July 9th.

Remember, no class on Monday! See you all on Wednesday.

Homework #2

Homework assignment #2 is due Friday, July 2nd.

Yajun's Office Hours

Yajun's office hours are now posted: Thursday 9:30 - 11:30 in her office. She's having special office hours tomorrow 9:30 - 11:30, so head there if you have any homework questions.

Worksheet Reminder

Remember to bring Worksheet 1 to quiz section tomorrow! You'll also have a chance to get help on the homework, so bring your homework questions too.

Announcement

As I mentioned in class, I'll be out of town on Friday and Monday. I've lined up two excellent substitutes, so lecture will happen as usual. My Friday office hours are cancelled. If you're stuck on the homework and sad that I can't help you Friday morning, remember that the Math Study Center is a great place to get help. It's open 10:50am - 5:40pm, Monday through Thursday.

Homework #1 Change

I've removed problem #1 from section 2.3 from the homework, since we won't cover section 2.3 until Friday. If you already did this problem, don't worry, your efforts were not in vain! It will be on the next homework assignment.

Homework #1

The first homework assignment is due Friday, June 25th. You might find the web supplement on parametric equations helpful. Please do

The section numbers refer to the textbook. This assignment is a bit shorter than usual, but you'll need to start as soon as you can--in particular, you might want to read section 2.2 of the textbook and try to solve the problems in that section before we cover it in class on Wednesday.

Class Format

I've posted the syllabus and the calendar. You can find everything you need to know there, but let me give a quick summary of the class format now. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday you have a lecture from me. In lecture, we'll cover all the important topics of differential calculus, but we won't necessarily do so at the level of detail you need to succeed in this class. In particular, to solve all the homework problems you'll need to read the textbook on your own sometimes.

On Tuesday and Thursday you'll have a quiz section with the TA, Yajun An. On Tuesday you will usually work in groups on a worksheet, which you're responsible for printing off and bringing to section. You can find a link to each day's worksheet on the calendar, and I'll also post a reminder and a link to the next worksheet on this website the day before. Note that the worksheet for the first week will be on Thursday instead of Tuesday. Participation in the worksheet is worth a small chunk of your grade. See the syllabus for the exact details.

On every Thursday except for the first and last week, there will be a short quiz on the week's material. I'll either post solutions on this page or distribute them in class.

There will be homework every week, usually due on Friday. I'll post the assignment and due date on this page.

Please don't hesitate to ask any questions you have. Good luck, and have fun learning calculus!

Welcome to Math 124A!

Hello everyone and welcome to Math 124A! We will be covering differential calculus, invented by Newton and Leibniz. If you're interested, you'll find an excellent introduction to the subject in this article from the New York Times website.

Please read the note to Math 124 students prepared by the department (though be aware that some details of the course format are a bit different in the summer). I'd like to highlight the Math Study Center, which is a terrific resource. Anytime it's open, you can go there to work and have tutors available to help you.

I'll post some more information on the format of the class soon. Until then, please feel free to email me at tobiasj@math.washington.edu if you have any questions.