MATH 421 Section 04 (Fall 2010)

Math 421 Section 04 (Fall 2010)

General Information:

Instructor: Prof. Roe Goodman tel. (732) 445-2390 ext. 3071
When and where: Tuesday 10:20--11:40 am, SEC-206 BUS and Friday 10:20--11:40 am, SEC-204 BUS
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday: 2:00--3:00 pm, Hill 428 (by appointment at other times)
Text: Advanced Engineering Mathematics (fourth edition) by Dennis G. Zill and Warren S. Wright.
Money-Saving Tip: The parts of the text used in the course are identical (except for color of typesetting) to the third edition (available as a used book).
Math 421 main course page

Course content:

Math 421 is oriented toward students in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering (curriculum 155) and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (curriculum 650). It develops mathematical tools used in upper-level engineering courses in these areas. The syllabus has four major topics:
Laplace transforms (6 lectures) The definition, main properties, and applications to the solution of ODE's	Linear algebra (6 lectures) Math 421 students are assumed to have some background in linear algebra in two and three dimensions. This part of the course is a fast-paced treatment of matrices and vectors of any size. The aim is to insure that important facts and algorithms are clearly stated and can be used by students in later courses.
Fourier series and orthogonal expansions (5 lectures) Orthogonal expansions in one variable; Fourier series; Fourier sine and cosine series; Sturm-Liouville problems; Orthogonal expansions and Fourier series in two variables	Classical PDE of mathematical physics (9 lectures) Solution of boundary value problems for the heat equation, wave equation, and Laplace's equation by separation of variables and orthogonal expansions

We will cover selected sections from Chapters 4, 8, 12, 13, and 14 of the text that treat the topics mentioned above. Click here for the syllabus with homework assignments. Click here for more information.

The course will use Sakai for solutions to the homework and the exams. All enrolled students should have automatic access to the site after logging in to Sakai. Current information about syllabus and homework will also be found there.

Technology
Many of the computations needed to apply the techniques of this course are quite elaborate. Therefore such software packages as Matlab, Maple, and Mathematica include many special functions designed to handle these techniques. While I strongly encourage you to use these programs whenever appropriate in your engineering and science courses, the exams and the homework in this course should be done by hand. You should have enough facility with "hand computation" to carry out basic Laplace transform, matrix, Fourier series, and differential equation calculations without computer assistance. The exams will be designed to avoid elaborate and tedious computation as much as possible.

Grading Scheme:

Homework: 10%
Homework is due on Tuesdays as indicated in the syllabus. No late homework is accepted.
Quizzes: 10%
Starting the second week there is a 10-minute quiz at the end of the class period on Fridays, except when there is a midterm exam on that day. The quizzes are based on the homework from the previous lectures. No makeup quizzes are given. The lowest quiz grade is dropped.
Midterm exams: 40% (20% each)
The first midterm exam is on Friday, October 15 (in class).
The second midterm exam is on Friday, November 19 (in class).
Final exam: 40%
The final exam is on Thursday, December 16 (12:00--3:00), room to be announced

All quizzes and exams are closed book, with no calculators allowed. Formula sheets will be provided with the exams.

Prof. Roe Goodman (goodman at math dot rutgers dot edu) / Revised August 24, 2010