MATH 410: Matrix Analysis (Fall 2006)

Section 1: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 9:00- 9:50 in Harvill 332B

Section 2: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 3:00 – 3:50 in Psychology 307

Professor: Dr. Bruce Bayly

Office: Math building, room 613 Email: bjb@math.arizona.edu

Phone: 621-4766 (work), 795-8761 (home), 331-2408 (cell)

Office hours: Monday 12:30 – 2:30 in office, Friday 12:30 – 2:30 in Upper Division tutoring room (Math 220 I think), or by appointment. Also Wednesday 1:00 – 2:00 in Math East 145, but this is the main Math dept tutoring room and it will be hard to give you my full attention. The Upper Division tutoring room is a great resource by the way, if you find out what hours which faculty will be there.

Textbook: APPLIED LINEAR ALGEBRA by Peter Olver and Chehrzad Shakiban.

Web page: I will be setting up a course web page, at which we will post course information, updates and changes to policy, syllabus, etc.. Also homework solution sets, exam solutions, and other supplementary material.

Grading policy: I will assign homework on a regular basis (every week or so), for a total of about 10 assignments worth 10 points each. I hope to arrange for solutions to be posted so that you can grade them yourselves. You should do the problems as best you can, and you may make use of any resources (including each other) to maximize your understanding. Similar problems will appear on the exams.

There will be four 50-minute in-class exams, scheduled for Wednesdays 13 September, 11 October, 8 November, and 29 November. Missed exams will count for zero points, unless you have a valid excuse, in which case the score for that exam will be replaced by the average of your other in-class exams. The Final will be 1 hour and 50 minutes long and worth 200 points. Unfortunately the two sections have Finals scheduled for different days (sec 1 from 8-10 am on 15 December, sec 2 from 2-4 p.m. on 13 December), but I’ll try to figure out alternative arrangements.

All points will be added together and the result divided by the total possible. Final percentages above 90, 80, 65, or 50 guarantee letter grades of at least A, B, C, or D respectively. In practice I anticipate giving difficult exams that most of the class will not finish in the available time. Please DO NOT PANIC! I will adjust letter-grade cutoffs if necessary so that your grade is a valid measure of your achievement in the course. See http://catalog.arizona.edu/2004-05/policies/grade.htm for rough indication of what letter grades should indicate, and I will give you more specific information on the web site.

Extra/Honors Credit: I will suggest optional extra-credit problems that develop tangents to the regular course material. You can get Honors credit doing all the extra credit and writing a short paper on some applications of matrices in your major.

LETTER GRADE STANDARDS

You ought not to be worrying about your grade in this course; you’re taking it because someone has convinced you that it’s useful and interesting material. Employers and/or grad schools won’t look terribly hard at your grade since it’s out of your major; they’re likely to be impressed that you signed up for it and passed. It’s not a required course for anyone (I believe); if you’re here you are smart, you like math, you don’t mind studying, and you can tell when you truly have grasped a concept. I certainly make a major effort to bring out the essential simplicity at the core of the subject; this is one course that really ought to feel easy.

HOWEVER it’s still a math course, you do have to study hard to make it all hang together, and it might well take a while before it’s truly as easy as it ought to be. So there’s always a wide distribution of grades, and you might end up being one of the number that gets a grade lower than you’re expecting (especially at the beginning of the course). If your GPA is in trouble for some reason, this may not be the course to save it!

The UA grading system http://catalog.arizona.edu/2004-05/policies/grade.htm suggests the guidelines:

`A’ (Excellent): Thorough mastery of the concepts and their relationships, able to explain in general terms and with examples. Able to apply knowledge flexibly and creatively on challenging mathematical and real-world problems. Able to explore computational strategies, choose and execute appropriately in any situation. To get an `A’ you have to do more than just learn the material solidly and do well on the exams.

`B’ (Good): Solid understanding of concepts and relationships, both theoretical and practical. Can apply knowledge confidently to various mathematical and real-world problems. Able to decide on and execute successful computations. To get a `B’ it IS enough to learn the material solidly and do well on the exams.

`C’ (Satisfactory): Competent understanding of concepts and relationships, able to execute any suggested computations. Able to solve variety of mathematical and real-world problems with suggested strategy, and interpret results.

`D’ (Marginal): Understand concepts, able to execute suggested computations. Solve mathematical problems and mathematical formulations of real-world problems