Math 16a - Analytic Geometry and Calculus - Fall 2008

Time and Location

T Th 12:30-2 in 105 Stanley

Instructor

Office hours: MW 10-11 in 831 Evans Hall, starting Sep 3, 643-5386

Secretary: Tammy Johnson, 719 Soda Hall, 643-4816 (send email)

Enrollment Issues

Section assignments are controlled entirely by Telebears. So if your currrent section time conflicts with your schedule, or it you are on a long wait list, you need to log on to Telebears, drop the course and re-enroll with a different section. If there are no open sections, aism for a section with a short wait list. The system will automatically move you into the section as space becomes available. Students near the top of a wait list have a good chance of getting in, but check once per day or so for openings in other sections. Meanwhile, attend the section for which you are wait-listed.

Unless something goes wrong with the above procedure, there is no need to contact Barbara Peavy (send email) in 967 Evans Hall. Unfortunately, due to the large volume of students, it may not be possible to reply to emails promptly.

Teaching Assistants and Sections

Announcements, Handouts, interesting Websites

(Dec 17) There is an error in one of the solutions in the posted sample final exam. Click here for details.

(Dec 11) Final review session information is posted below under Examinations. More will be posted as sessions are scheduled.

(Dec 9) Practice homework questions from section 6.5 (not to be turned in, but on material to be covered on the final) have been posted.

(Nov 24) The location of the final exam has been announced (see below).

(Nov 9) More pointers have been added below to interesting websites related to measuring the ages of old bones, cave paintings, volcanic eruptions, religious artifacts, and the earth itself, all using exponential decay of radioactive materials.

(Nov 6) Midterm 2 answers (to all 3 versions) are now posted under Examinations.

(Nov 4) I added a pointer below to more information about Thomas Malthus.

(Oct 27) Sample second midterms are now posted under Examinations.

(Oct 27) Prof. Demmel's office hours are canceled today.

(Oct 22) John Zhu's office hours have changed; click here for details.

(Oct 16) I added a pointer below to more information about the Laffer Curve.

(Oct 7) The Disabled Students' Program (DSP) is looking for a note taker! If you take clear, well-organized notes, this is a good opportunity for you to assist a fellow student and receive pay. Please come to the Disabled Students' Program Office and fill out an application. They are located in 260 Cesar Chavez right beside The Golden Bear Cafe. The application is also available on-line here. If you have any questions, please send email to dspnote@berkeley.edu.

(Sept 25) Midterm 1 answers (to all 3 versions) are now posted under Examinations.

(Sept 23) A professional note-taker who attends all the lectures has kindly agreed to provide transcripts of all my lectures to all students. Click here to see them.

(Sept 22) Detailed rules about taking exams are posted under Examinations. In particular, you must bring a picture ID to the exam.

(Sept 17) Sample midterms are now posted, see under Examinations.

(Sept 17) If you are still on the wait-list for the class, please make sure to use Telebears to sign up for an open discussion section by the deadline of Sept 26.

(Sept 16) If you want to buy a used copy of the textbook, please email kcicolello@berkeley.edu .

(Sept 14) Jae-young Park's Monday office hours have been changed to 11-12.

(Sept 12) Several students asked about using more advanced ideas from earlier classes they have taken, such as L'Hopital's rule for evaluating limits. In this class you have to use the techniques taught in class to solve the problems, and show the corresponding work. You are welcome to check your answers using any other knowledge you may have.

(Sept 3) Ishai Dan-Cohen is no longer Head TA. If you have enrollment questions, please contact Barbara Peavy (send email) in 967 Evans Hall; because of the large numbers of students, it may not be possible to respond to emails promptly.

(Sept 3) Because of an important meeting, I need to move my office hours today; I'll be in my office 9:30-10 and 12:30 - 1:30.

(Sept 2) The locations of sections 111 and 112 have changed; please click here for details. Hopefully rooms will not change again but if they do this web page may not be updated immediately, so please check here before class.

(Sept 2) Because of the confusion about the location of section 112 today, next week's quiz in this section will cover some material from this week.

No calculators will be required or used in this course.

SETI@Home: using idle time on millions of home computers to analyze data collected from radio telescopes to Search for ExtraTerrestial Intelligence (i.e. aliens, as in the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster). The software that enables this was invented at Berkeley.

Folding@Home: using thousands of home computers to solve the differential equations describing how proteins react (and "fold"), in order to understand and discover cures for diseases like Alzheimer's.

If you prefer to volunteer your computer for a different problem, like understanding global warming (also differential equations), understanding how malaria is transmitted, or finding large prime numbers (or even a collection of these and many other problems), look here, and then click on "Choose Projects".

Berkeley's Center for the Built Environment does research on how to design and build better buildings that save energy while keep the occupants comfortable. They use a variety of mathematical modeling techniques to for example predict how much energy a proposed new building design would use, and to explore better designs.

Berkeley's Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center uses mathematical modeling to predict the effects of earthquakes on structures like buildings and bridges, and to find safer, more quake-resistant designs.

About using calculators and computers: they all lie, because they have to.

Galois proved that unlike a quadratic equation (degree 2 polynomial), cubic equation (degree 3 polynomial), or quartic equation (degree 4 polynomial), it is impossible to have a formula (like the quadratic formula) for the zeros of any higher degree polynomial (5 or higher). He described his solution in a letter to a friend the night before he died in a duel at the age of 20, in 1832. There used to be a wall painting of Galois in Evans Hall, before it was repainted recently. As you can tell from the wall-painting, Galois was also involved in revolutionary politics.

Here is more information about the Laffer Curve, which plots total tax revenue to the government as a function of the tax rate on a product, and says that as the tax rate starts increasing from zero, initially total tax revenue increases, but eventually reaches a maximum and starts falling again, as the tax raises the cost to the consumer enough that fewer people buy the product. You can imagine that exactly what the curve looks like has been politically controversial.

Here is more information about Thomas Malthus, who used the exponential growth of population versus the linear growth of food supply to predict unavoidably repeating famines, wars, epidemics, or other disasters. (The article refers to the growth of population as "geometric" and the growth of food supply as "arithmetic", but these mean the same thing as "exponential" and "linear").

Radiocarbon dating, which depends on the exponential decay of carbon 14, has been used to estimate the ages of old bones, cave paintings, volcanic eruptions, and religious artifacts among other things. Other radioactive materials have been used to measure the age of the earth.

Course text, syllabus, and tentative schedule

"Calculus and its Applications", vol. 1, 11th edition, by Goldstein, Lay, Schneider and Asmar,

We will cover the entire book, whose chapters are as follows:

Functions

The Derivative

Applications of the Derivative

Techniques of Differentiation

Exponential and Logarithm Functions,

Applications of Exponential and Logarithm Functions

The Definite Integral

Tentative Course Schedule (subject to revision)

Prerequisites

Math 32 or three years of high school mathematics including trigonometry. If you are not sure whether this is the right course for you, please try this anonymous diagnostic exam. Math 16A and 16B are intended for students who do not intend to take further mathematics courses. If your intended major lies in the sciences, or if you have some previous experience with calculus, you might consider taking Math 1A and 1B instead, even if your department does not require it.

Homework Assignments

There will be weekly assignments posted here, due at the beginning of section each Tuesday. You are encouraged to discuss questions with each other or to come to office hours for help. After discussion with others, write-ups must be done separately. In practice, this means that you should not be looking at other students' solutions as you write your own. Use examples in the book as a model for the level of detail expected.

Examinations

You are allowed to go to all GSIs' review sessions, not just your own GSI's, although if there is a shortage of space or desks, the particular GSI's students will get priority.

Danielle Champney's review sessions and office hours will be as follows:

Review session: Dec 11: 12:30-2:30 in 3 Evans

Review session: Dec 15: 11-1 in 2 Evans

Office Hours: Dec 11: 2:30-4:30 in 868 Evans

Office Hours: Dec 18: 2-5 in 868 Evans

Jay-young Park's review sessions will be as follows:

Review session: Dec 15: 2-4, in 2 Evans

Review session: Dec 17: 2-4, in 2 Evans

John Zhu's review session will be as follows:

Review session: Dec 16: 3:30-5:30, in 5 Evans

Ian Herbert's review session will be as follows:

Review session: Dec 17: 3-6, in 289 Cory

Midterm 1 will be in class on Thursday, Sept 25, with a review in lecture on Tuesday, Sept 23.

Midterm 2 will be in class on Thursday, Nov 6, with a review in lecture on Tuesday, Nov 4.

The final will be Friday, Dec 19, 12:30-3:30pm Review sessions for the final will be announced later.

The final exam will be in Hertz Hall, which has theater style seats, without an attached writing surface. We will supply an 8 1/2" x 14" lapboard for each student to write on.

Practice exams will be posted here later in the semester.

The same rules will apply for all exams: closed book, closed notes, closed calculator, closed phone, closed computer, closed network, open brain. You must bring a picture ID to the exam. For more detailed rules, click on Examinations.

There will be no makeup midterms; if for any reason you cannot take a midterm, we will substitute your grade from the final (appropriately normalized).

There will be no makeup final; if for some unavoidable reason (eg illness, with a doctor's excuse) you cannot attend the final, and otherwise have a passing grade, you will get an incomplete and be required to take the final during the next offering of the course.

Transcripts of all lectures

Quizzes

Quizzes will administered on a regular basis by your TA during sections.

Grading Policy

1/6 of your grade will depend on performance in section (homework and quizzes), 1/6 will depend on midterm 1, 1/6 on midterm 2, and 1/2 on the final.

The following is our planned grading scale:

85% or higher will result in at least an A- .

70% or higher will result in at least a B- .

55% or higher will result in at least a C- .

45% or higher will result in at least a D .

Cheating Policy

Don't cheat. We treat all incidents of academic dishonesty seriously and will initiate disciplinary procedures should such a case arise. Cheating includes copying homework, looking at other students' exams and quizzes, using notes or electronic aids during exams, modifying exams and turning them in for regrading, etc.

Resources

Student Learning Center

Counseling

Other important things

It is your responsibility to inform me and your TA as far in advance as possible in case of an unavoidable conflict with an exam, in case of an extended absence, or in case you find yourself struggling with the course for any reason. If you need disability-related accommodations in the class, if you have emergency medical information that you wish to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please inform me as soon as possible: feel free to talk to me privately after class or in my office.