John Jones - MAT 442

MAT 442

The score checker will now compute your current average, and also compute what you need to average from now to the end of the course to get into different grade ranges. First, the results of these computations are unofficial. You should do the computations yourself to be sure. Second, if it says that you need to average 75% to get a B and you average 75%, expect to get a B- (the lowest grade in the B range).

Homework assignments

11/23 Scores for test 2 are posted. The high score was 99/103 and the median was 85. We will treat this test as if it was out of 100 points, so your raw score goes into the final grade computation as if it were out out of 100.

11/21 Solutions for test 2 (pdf).

10/28 Test 2 is coming up. It will cover Chapters 3, 4, and 5. Specifically, Sections 3.1-3.3, 4.1-4.4, 5.1, 5.2, 5.4.

10/28 The office hour on Wednesday, 11/4, is cancelled. I will be out of town to give a talk at another university.

10/21 On test 1, the high score was 122 (so 110%), and the median was 86 (so 78%).

10/19 See above for comments on the score checker.

10/19 Scores for test 1 are posted with the score-checker above. The test had 130 points possible. We will treat it as if there was 110 points, with 20 points of extra credit. The score checker will give both the raw score (out of 130), and the percentage (raw score / 110 * 100).

10/17 Solutions for test 1 (pdf).

10/11 I found a copy of an old test 1. That semester, there was more emphasis on fields, so some questions would not be appropriate this semester.

10/8 Class time on Tuesday, Oct 13 will be devoted to answering questions on material related to the test. Class on Thursday will cover new material.

10/6 The handout mentioned in class on defining the determinant of a matrix directly.

9/30 Test 1 is coming up in a couple of weeks. It will cover Chapters 1 and 2 (so 1.2-1.6 and 2.1-2.6).

9/23 Someone asked about seeing old exams. There are old finals which are available, and links are given below. Bear in mind that these naturally cover material we have not covered (in particular, the material on fields and linear algebra from later chapters), and they are written by different people. Nonetheless, they may be of use.

9/23 Event for upper-division math students and majors: Getting started with LaTeX, Tuesday, September 29 at 4:15pm in PSA 206. Refreshments and cookies will be served.

9/9 Homework assignments are graded out of 60 points each. The first assignment has been graded. You can check your (raw) score with the grade checker above.

9/9 Starting Tuesday, 9/15, we are changing classrooms to Discovery 181.

9/3 Next week's homework mentions the characteristic of a field. This is related to times when 1+1+...+1=0 in F. If this never happens (like for Q, R, and C), then we say the field has characteristic 0. If it does happens, the characteristic is the smallest positive integer n such that 1 plus itself n times gives 0. For the fields Z_p, the characteristic is p. In particular, if a field has characteristic different from two, then 1+1 is not 0.

8/31 The first homework assignment as been posted.

8/28 Office hours on Wednesday 9/2 may start late because of a doctor's appointment.

8/25 The field definition pdf used in class today.

8/24 The Math Department is running the Problem Solving Seminar, currently taught by Igor Fulman. This course was originally designed to prepare students for the Putnam Exam, but it is not required that the students take the Putnam. Students will learn problem-solving techniques and encounter problems that are not just applications of material learned in class. Students will also get practice in presenting their solutions in front of a (small) group.

This course meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 to 2:45 in Payne Hall (EDB), room L1-32. The course number is MAT 194, 294, 394, or 494, depending on whether you are a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. (This enables you to take the course more than once.) Check the Schedule of Courses for the SLNs.

Unlike in other courses, students of this course may choose the unit value of the course: from 1 to 4 units. More points mean more participation on the student's side. For additional information, check the web page of the course at http://math.asu.edu/~ifulman/fall09/mat194.

About this course

MAT 442 studies theorems and proofs in linear algebra. Almost all of the concepts will have been introduced in prior linear algebra courses, such as MAT 342 or MAT 343. These include vector spaces, span and linear independence, bases, dimension, linear transformations, matricies, determinants, and inner products. Note, methods of computation are studied in other courses. As a result, facility with proofs is the most important skill a student can bring to this course.

Office hours (starting Tuesday 8/25):