Instructor: Corey Hoelscher
Office: Hill Center, room 515.
Office Phone: 732-445-2390 ext. 5935.
Office hours: Tuesdays 12:00-1:00, Thursdays 3:30-4:30 and after class
e-mail:

Stay tuned here for important announcements about the course.

• The final exam will be Thursday, May 7th, 8:00-11:00pm. The exam is cumulative with roughly 1/3+ over Chapter 3 and the rest review.
• The Final Exam Review Questions are posted. Doing these problems is the best way to study for the portion of the final which covers Chapter 3. You should also redo problems from the old exams, quizzes the Midterm Reviews. I just posted blank copies of the midterms and quizzes on Sakai, under Resources. It would be a good idea to print these out and redo any problems that you are not 100% sure about.
• I will be giving a review session on Tuesday, May 5th, 7:00-9:00pm, in Scott Hall room 219.
• Please take a few minutes to fill out the online course survey on Sakai. You comments are especially helpful.
• Second exam performance: If you performed much worse on the second exam than on the first exam, then talk to me about potentially dropping the second exam grade. This will only be possible if your performance on the final exam is above your level of performance on the first exam.
• Here is a great video which explains Fractional Linear Transformations and the Riemann sphere: youTube version or higher quality versions.
• Here are some good applets to help you visualize the complex exponential function.
  http://www.sunsite.ubc.ca/LivingMathematics/V001N01/UBCExamples/ComplexViewer/complex.html
  http://www-math.mit.edu/daimp/ComplexExponential.html
• Quiz, homework and exam grades will be posted on Sakai.

Class will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays 6:40pm to 8:00pm in the ARC building, room 204, on Busch.

This is a first course in the theory of a complex variable. Topics for the course include: Cauchy's integral theorem and its applications, Taylor and Laurent expansions, singularities, and conformal mapping. The main Math 403 website has more general information about this course.

The text for the course is Stephen D. Fisher: "Complex Variables, 2nd edition."

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 an abstract mathematics book 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 February 26th and April 9th. 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 Thursday, May 7th, 8:00-11:00pm. 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, 1.1.1 and 1.2
   This artical on Presenting Your Work
Problems:
   1.1: 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 18, 21*
   1.2: 2, 7, 12, 21a, 22, 28*, 34, 36, 38

HW 2:

Reading:
   Sections 1.3 and 1.4 in our text
   Review the relevent sections on sequences from your Calculus text
Problems:
   1.2: 24
   1.3: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 25, 28
   1.4: 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13

HW 3:

Reading:
   Sections 1.4 and 1.5 in our text
   Read the statements of problems 30, 42 and 43 of section 1.4
      you may need to use these results to do the problems below
   Review the relevent sections on series from your Calculus text
Problems:
   1.4: 17, 18, 19, 21, 31, 32, 34, 40a
   1.5: 1-5, 8, 15b, 17, 20*, 23, 24, 25*

HW 4:

Reading:
   Section 1.6 in our text
Problems:
   1.6: 1-4, 7, 10, 11, 15
   Write a paragraph explaining what each of the following applets shows us:
      Applet 1
      Applet 2

HW 5:

Reading:
   Section 2.1 in our text
Problems:
   2.1: 1a-c, 2-7, 9, 10, 14, 16, 20a-b, 23

Midterm 1 Review:

   Here is a sampling of good problems from the book. Note, however, that this list is not exhaustive. Any type of question from any homework assignment or class discussion could be asked on the exam.

Problems:
   1.1: 3d, 3g, 5d
   1.2: 14, 16, 23, 35
   1.3: 5, 10, 26
   1.4: 3, 14, 15, 40b
   1.5: 13, 15c, 23
   1.6: 5, 6, 16
   2.1: 7, 8, 20c

HW 6:

Reading:
   Sections 2.1.1 and 2.2 in our text
Problems:
   2.1.1: 1, 2
   2.2: 1-4, 7-9, 12, 14-16, 22*

HW 7:

Reading:
   Sections 2.3 and 2.4 in our text
Problems:
   2.3: 1-4, 9-12
   2.4: 1-4, 9-12

HW 8:

Reading:
   Section 2.4 and section 2.5 up through the part on "Computing Residues"
   For problems 7-9 of section 2.5, use equation (6) as the definition of a Laurent Series
Problems:
   2.4: 18-20
   2.5: 1-4, 7-9

HW 9:

Reading:
   Sections 2.5 and 2.6
Problems:
   2.5: 10-12, 14, 17*, 22a-c, 24
   2.6: 1, 2, 4, 13

Midterm 2 Review:

   Here is a sampling of good problems from the book. Note, however, that this list is not exhaustive. Any type of question from any homework assignment or class discussion could be asked on the exam.

Problems:
   2.2: 5, 6, 9, 13, 18
   2.3: 1, 3, 9, 11, 14
   2.4: 5, 6, 7, 15, 23
   2.5: 6, 7, 9, 13, 16, 21, 22d-e
   2.6: 3, 17

HW 10:

Reading:
   Section 3.1
Problems:
   3.1: 1, 2, 7-9, 12, 13, 16, 17a-b, 20*

HW 11:

Reading:
   Sections 3.2 and 3.3
Problems:
   3.2: 1, 2, 5, 6, 10
   3.3: 1, 2, 3, 4a-b, 5a-b, 6, 7a
   Watch the following video and write a paragraph explaining what it teaches you:
      youTube version or higher quality versions.

HW 12:

Reading:
   Sections 3.4 and 3.5 up through page 227
Problems:
   3.4: 1, 2, 3*, 4, 11
   3.5: 1-5, 8

Final Exam Review:

   Here is a sampling of good problems from Chapter 3 of the book. You should also look over the midterm review questions to prepare yourself for that material.
   Note, as usual, that these lists are not exhaustive. Any type of question from any homework assignment or class discussion could be asked on the exam.

Problems:
   3.1: 5, 8, 15
   3.2: 3, 6, 10
   3.3: 4d, 5c-d
   3.4: 7a
   3.5: 5, 7, 9


* denotes optional problems

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

Site created: January 18, 2009.