Instructor: Corey Hoelscher
Office: Hill Center, room 515.
Office Phone: 732-445-2390 ext. 5935.
Office hours: Mondays 4:20-4:50, Tuesdays 2:20-3:20, Wednesdays 4:20-4:50
e-mail:

Stay tuned here for important announcements about the course.

• The final exam will take place Wednesday December 17, 8:00-11:00pm, in the usual classroom. It will cover roughly 3/4 new material and 1/4 review. The new material consists of everything we have done since the last exam, specifically sections 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, and 6.6, and the old material is everything that was covered on the previous exams.
• The Final Exam Equation Sheet is available here. You will be given a fresh copy of this exact sheet on the final exam. Notice that the sheet only lists expressions and does not equate them to anything or explain them. It is your responsibility to know what these expressions mean and how they are used.
• I will be giving a review session on Sunday 6:00-8:00pm in Scott Hall room 207, on College Ave, where I will go over problems from the practice exam.
• The final exam review problems are due at the final exam. Doing this exam review is the best way to study for the part of the exam which will cover new material. For the review part of the exam you should look over and/or redo the old exams, quizzes, and midterm reviews.
• I will be holding my usual office hours on Monday 4:20-4:50 and Tuesday 2:20-3:20 but I will NOT have office hours on Wednesday.
• Solutions to the first and second midterm exams are available on Sakai under Resources.
• Quiz, homework and exam grades will be posted on Sakai.

Class will meet Mondays and Wednesdays 7:40 PM - 9:00 PM in Frelinghuysen Hall, room A3, on the College Avenue Campus.

Some of the topics we will cover include: Systems of linear equations, Gaussian elimination, matrices and determinants, vectors in two- and three-dimensional Euclidean space, vector spaces, introduction to eigenvalues and eigenvectors. The main Math 250 website has more general information about this course.

The text for the course is Spence, Insel, & Friedberg: "Elementary Linear Algebra: A Matrix Approach, 2nd Edition" along with the companion website with additional materials. Video lectures of a similar course are available from MIT's Linear Algebra webpage.

The subject of Linear Algebra is very different from Calculus and requires a very different way of thinking. In this course you will be required to not only solve computational problems but also to understand more difficult and abstract concepts. Reading and writing simple proofs will also be a part of the course. Many students who did well in Calculus take this course and find that they are having more difficulty than they usually have in a math course. That is why this course will require a lot of hard work and a change to the way you go about doing mathematics. Here we will be focused on understanding deep concepts and applying them to solve interesting problems, and not on plugging numbers into formulas.

Doing homework problems is the best way to make sure you understand the material and to reinforce what you have learned. Every week there will be a homework assignment on the material covered in class. The assignments will be posted in the course calendar below and it is your responsibility to check this calendar for the assignments and due dates. The homeworks will be graded for completion and the quiz questions will generally be taken directly from the homework. Doing homework problems is the only way to really learn math. It is easy to sit through a lecture or read a book and think you understand everything. But when you sit down to solve problems you realize there are lots of holes in your knowledge. This is why the homework is an essential part of the course.

Each homework assignment will also have assigned reading from the book. These readings are very important for several reasons. First, we will not always have time to cover everything from the book in class and you will have to read the skipped parts of the book in order to be able to do the homework and be prepared for the quizzes and exams. Second, it is an important skill to be able to read and follow written mathematics and this is one of the goals of the course.

Quizzes are a good way for you to make sure you can solve important types of problems and they give you a bit more practice with the material. There will be a quiz each week in class that will cover the material from the previous homework. The quiz will usually consist of a few problems directly from the homework. The best way to study for the quizzes is to do the homework. If you know how to do all the problems on the homework then you will have no problem with the quiz. The two lowest quizzes will be dropped at the end of the semester and there will be no make-up quizzes for any reason.

There are two in-class midterm exams and one cumulative final exam. The midterms are tentatively scheduled for 10/8/08 and 11/12/08. Let me know now if you have any problems making these dates as make-up exams will only be given under extreme circumstances. The final exam is scheduled by the university to be on Wednesday December 17 from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM. No notecards or calculators will be allowed on any exam or quiz.

The grading will be roughly computed according to the following table.




Read the following description of how to present your work.

HW 1:

Reading:
   Sections 1.1 and 1.2
   This artical on Presenting Your Work
Problems:
   1.1: 1, 3, 5, 9, 17, 19, 23, 25, TF: 37-56, 71, 75, 79, 81*, 82
   1.2: 29, 31, 35, 37, 39

HW 2:

Reading:
   Sections 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4
Problems:
   1.2: 1, 3, 9, 15, 19, TF: 45-63, 67, 68, 75, 76, 77, 78
   1.3: 1, 3, 7, 9, 11, 23, 25, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, TF: 57-76, 81
   1.4: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 27, 35, 37, 43, TF: 53-72, 74-78, 81-84, 87-91

HW 3:

Reading:
   Sections 1.6 and 1.7
Problems:
   1.6: 1, 3, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 39, 43, TF: 45-64, 70, 72
   1.7: 1, 5, 13, 15, 23, 25, 29, 33

HW 4:

Reading:
   Sections 1.7 and 2.1
Problems:
   1.7: 39, 41, 51, 53, 57, TF: 63-82, 87*, 89
   2.1: 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, TF: 33-50

HW 5:

Reading:
   Sections 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5
Problems:
   2.3: 1, 3, 9, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 25, 29, 31, TF: 33-52, 54, 59, 61, 67, 69, 71, 83
   2.4: 1, 3, 7, 9, 19, 27, 29, TF: 35-54, 64
   2.5: 1, 3, 9, 35, 37, 39

Midterm 1 Review:

   1.1: 75
   1.2: 15, 66, 71, 78
   1.3: 77
   1.4: 3, 13, 15, 29, 75, 81
   1.6: 17, 25, 33, 67
   1.7: 17, 25, 47, 85
   Chapter 1 Review: TF: 1-17, 35, 48, 51, 61, 67, 71
   2.1: 25, 27, 63
   2.3: 13, 17, 29, 63, 69
   2.4: 13, 29, 57
   Chapter 2 Review: 33, 45

HW 6:

Reading:
   Sections 2.7 (but not in detail), 2.8, 3.1 and 3.2
Problems:
   2.7: 21, 27, 29
   2.8: 1, 3, 13, 15, 21, 29, 35, 65
   3.1: 1, 3, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 21, 23, 27, 29, 31, 37, 43, TF: 45-63
   3.2: 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 17, 21, 27, 33, TF: 39-58, 59, 63, 67, 69-74

HW 7:

Reading:
   Sections 4.1 and 4.2
Problems:
   4.1: 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 13, 19, 21, 27, 29, 33, TF: 43-51, 57-62, 67, 69, 72, 73, 74, 78, 81, 83, 85, 89, 93
   4.2: 1, 3, 5, 7, 17, 19, 21, 25, 27, TF: 33-50, 53, 54, 59, 63, 65

HW 8:

Reading:
   Sections 4.3 and 5.1
Problems:
   4.3: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19, 25, 27, TF: 41-57, 59-60, 63, 65, 69, 73-75, 83
   5.1: 1, 3, 7, 9, 13, 17, 23, TF: 41-46, 55-60, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 72, 73, 74

HW 9:

Reading:
   Sections 5.2 and 5.3
Problems:
   5.2: 1, 5, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 41, 47, TF: 53-72, 79, 81, 85, 86
   5.3: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 15, 17, 19, TF: 29-48, 49, 51, 55, 57, 61, 63, 65, 73, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 85

Midterm 2 Review:

   3.1: 17, 27, 29
   3.2: 13, 29, 63,69, 73
   Chapter 3 Review: 39
   4.1: 11, 19, 72, 73, 74, 83, 89
   4.2: 7, 19, 59
   4.3: 3, 19, 74
   Chapter 4 Review: 31, 49
   5.1: 7, 63, 65, 67, 69
   5.2: 5, 7, 17, 73, 82
   5.3: 1, 9, 17, 49, 51, 57, 63, 73

HW 10:

Reading:
   Sections 6.1, 6.2 and the subsection of 5.5 on systems of differential equations
Problems:
   5.5: 45, 55, 61
   6.1: 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 25, 29, 33, 37, 43, 49, 51, 53, TF: 61-80, 95, 97, 98
   6.2: 1, 3, 7, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, TF: 41-52, 55

HW 11:

Reading:
   Sections 6.3 and 6.4
Problems:
   6.3: 1, 5, 9, 11, 17, 19, 21, TF: 33-56, 59, 61, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75
   6.4: 1, 5, 17, 21, TF: 28-32

HW 12:

Reading:
   Sections 6.5 and 6.6
Problems:
   6.5: 3, 7, 9, 11, TF: 17, 21-29, 49
   6.6: 3, 5, 13, 15, 17, 19, TF: 21-40, 59*

Final Exam Review: (due at final)

   6.1: 7, 13, 45, 49, 53, 87, 92, 103
   6.2: 5, 15, 19, 31, 39, 63
   6.3: 7, 13, 29, 61, 68
   6.4: 3, 17, 23
   6.5: 13, 49
   6.6: 1, 17
   Chapter 6 Review: TF: 1-17, 45

You should also look over the midterm reviews and do some problems from those sections.


TF denotes true or false questions
* denotes especially challenging problems

Be sure to check all your answers in the back of the book.

Last modified: September 1, 2008