Instructor: Corey Hoelscher
Office: Hill Center, room 515
Office Phone: 732-445-2390 ext. 5935
Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 2:40-3:10pm; Tuesdays 6:30-7:30pm
e-Mail:

Stay tuned here for important announcements about the course.

• The final exam will take place Tuesday December 22, 12:00-3:00pm in the usual classroom. It will cover roughly 2/3 new material and 1/3 review. The new material consists of everything we covered on Traffic flow, spacifically HW 8 through HW 11 (sections 56-63, 65-73, 77-79, and 82). The old material is everything that was covered on the previous exams, i.e. Mechanics and Ecology.
• The best way to study is to make sure you can do all the problems from the homework, quizzes and midterms.
• I have posted blank copies of the quizzes and midterms on Sakai. You can print them out and retake them to test yourself, then check your answers with the solutions provided.
• I will be giving a review session on Saturday 12/19 2:00-4:00pm in Scott Hall room 102, on College Ave, where I will go over any questions people have from any homework assignment, quiz or exam.
• You will be allowed one standard (8 1/2 x 11) page of handwritten notes on the final exam.
• I will NOT hold my usual office hours during finals. Instead I will have office hours Sunday 12/20, 4:00-6:00pm and Monday 12/21, 12:00-2:00pm.
• Please take a few minutes to fill out the online course survey on Sakai. Your comments about what you like and what could be improved are especially helpful, and of course, these surveys are completely anonymous.
• Solutions to selected homework problems and both exams have been posted on Sakai, under the resources tab.
• Quiz, homework and exam grades will be posted on Sakai.

Topics: We will cover mathematical models of mechanical vibrations, population dynamics, and traffic flow, involving ordinary differential equations and nonlinear first-order partial differential equations.

Prerequisite: CALC4.

Textbook: Richard Haberman, Mathematical Models: Mechanical Vibrations, Population Dynamics, and Traffic Flow, S. I. A. M. 1998.

Doing homework problems is the best way to make sure you understand the material and to reinforce what you have learned. There will be regular homework assignments posted on the course calendar below. It is your responsibility to check this calendar for the assignments and due dates. 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 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 understand written mathematics and this is one of the goals of the course.

There will also be occasional quizzes in class to test the material from the homework. These will be announced in advance. There will be no make-up quizzes for any reason however the two lowest grades on either a quiz or a homework will be dropped at the end of the semester.

There are two in-class midterm exams and one cumulative final exam. The midterms are tentatively scheduled for 9/30/09 and 11/4/09. 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 will be Tuesday, December 22, 12:00-3:00pm. No notecards or calculators will be allowed on any exam or quiz.

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