The class meets Mondays, Wednesdays in SERC 211, and Thursdays in SERC 204, form 5:00 to 6:20 p.m. My office hours are 11-12:15 Monday and 2:30-3:30 Thursday. My office is 632 Hill Center. My email is carlen at math dot rutgers dot edu.
There will be two in-class hour exams, worth 100 points each. There will be a final exam worth 200 points. There will be various homeworks, challenge problems, possible quizzes and Maple projects (see the syllabus), and these will count for an additional 100 points. The final grades will be assigned on the basis of the fraction of the possible 500 points that are earned.
Here is the online text for the course, to be posted progressively.
Here are notes on the calculus of variations and the Euler-Lagrange Equati on by Frank Porter of Cal Tech.
Here are notes on the brachistochrone problem with a full proff of the minimization property.
Here is the syllabus for this course.
This page contains links to practice tests, some of which will be solved in review sessions.
Here you will find detailed solutions to the assignments and tests, posted after the dues dates, of course!
The homework assignments are listed >on the Homework assigments web page.
The workshops will be built around challenge problems sets. Complete information on these assignments can be found on the Challenge Problems web page.