8:55-10:10 AM, Monday through Thursday, B102 Van Vleck
Welcome
to Math 221! Here some facts about how the course will run. Check the course
web site, http://www.math.wisc.edu/~wilson/Courses/Math221/221Sum09/index.htm,
which will be operating soon, for the latest information.
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Summer
school goes by very fast! In the schedule, which I am also sending by email and
which will also soon be at the course website, you will see that many days we
have to cover two sections in the textbook. We will skip, so far as
class is concerned: (a) The whole first chapter. Sections 1.1-1.6 are critical
material you are supposed to bring with you from previous courses. Please
review that chapter before the first class. (b) Section 4.7 on Newton’s
method: Of course since we are skipping it, that material won’t appear on
quizzes or exams, but if you are considering majoring in Computer Science or in
some areas of engineering you should read it. I will be glad to try to answer
questions on it. (c) Several of the applications of integration in chapter 6.
Look through them to see if they relate to your likely major. But the most
important thing to get from chapter 6 is how an integral arises in an
application, not any particular application. (d) Relative growth rates, section
7.6: Be sure to read this if you plan
to be a math or physics major or to study computational complexity in Computer
Science.
Also: Note that, in the last chapter, we will be studying logarithms. The
approach will likely be different from what you had in high school, if you had
logarithms in high school, so be wary! (Note that those high school teachers
who think logarithms lost their relevance with the advent of calculators are
just plain wrong! Logs come up all the time in subjects that make use of
calculus!)
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On
a separate page you can find the course schedule. The reading assignments
should be read before we reach that point in class. There are suggested
homework problems: Your TA may assign others, and may have you turn in some as
part of the discussion grade. As the saying goes, “Mathematics is not a
spectator sport.” You only learn it by doing it. If a day does not have an
assignment shown that does not mean you have no class!
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Class
meetings: You have class 75 minutes each morning, Monday through Thursday, and
again 50 minutes each of those afternoons. In general the morning section will
be a lecture covering new material, while the afternoon will be a (smaller)
section where you can ask questions and see more examples worked. There will
probably also be quizzes and homework
assignments due in the afternoon section. The problems listed on the
schedule sheet are for you to work as a test for yourself of whether you have
understood the reading assignment. Although exam problems may well resemble
these, they are not assigned to be turned in unless your TA assigns some of
them.
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Grading:
There will be one midterm exam and a final exam. Your grade will depend upon
those exams as well as the grade from your TA-led discussion section. We will
give you a letter grade estimate on the midterm, so you can see how you are
doing, but your final grade will be based primarily on your total out of 400
points: 100 for the midterm, 200 for the final, and 100 from the discussion
section, and not on those advisory letter grades.
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The
midterm exam is scheduled for the morning class on Thursday, July 9. In the
summer there is no separate time set aside for final exams: The final exam will
be given in both the morning and afternoon sections on the last day of class.
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You
are not required to have a calculator for this course. A scientific calculator
might be helpful, if you are used to using it: Some of the assigned problems
require you to do a significant amount of arithmetic. On quizzes and exams you
will be allowed to use calculators, but the questions will be designed to be
fair to those not using calculators.
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This
course will include both theory and practice. You will learn to solve problems,
but you also need to understand why the solution methods work so as to use them
correctly. In addition some of the fundamental ideas in calculus are some of
the greatest intellectual achievements of our human race, and it is important to
recognize both the great problems those ideas were developed to solve and the
ways of thinking that went into them. And, if you are ever going to use this
material, you can be sure that use will require understanding: Rote carrying
out of calculational procedures can be done by computers, and competing with
computers is not the way to job security!
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The
text for this course is Thomas' Calculus, 11th edition, special
Wisconsin version with 2nd order differential equations. This is the
same text that we have used for several years, so there are used copies around. Be sure you have the special
version that includes chapter 17 in the back! We don’t need that chapter this
summer, but it will be essential if you continue to 222 so a book without that
chapter is not worth much as a used book around UW.
Some students spend money on the solutions book that shows worked out answers
to odd-numbered problems: I do not recommend doing that, it is a waste of money
as well as being likely to lead you astray. There is a great temptation to look
at the solutions not to check your work but to see how to proceed, and that
crutch won’t be there for quizzes or examinations! Your emphasis should be on
developing enough understanding that you can see what needs to be done, not just
on carrying out routine calculations.
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I
will post general announcements, sample problems, etc. at the course web site, which is http://www.math.wisc.edu/~wilson/Courses/Math221/221Sum09/index.htm.
In addition I will send email messages to the class: Make sure your email
address is correctly entered in the UW database. (The university maintains the
email list based on your email address on record with the registrar. I cannot
change it.)
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My
schedule, including office hours, will be posted at my web site, http://www.math.wisc.edu/~wilson.
My office is 411 Van Vleck Hall, where the telephone is (608) 263-5944. My
email address is wilson@math.wisc.edu.