Math 308 A and E: Matrix Algebra: James King

Email: king@u.washington.edu Office: Padelford C440 Phone: 543-1915

Office Hours: Mon 1 - 2, Wed 1 - 2 and by appointment

Class Webpage: http://www.math.washington.edu/~king/coursedir/m308a13/

Class Email List: This list has been generated by the UW system. It will be used occasionally for information and announcements, but course information will mostly be found on the website and linked Catalyst pages. You should get a test email during the first week of class.

Nature of the Course: The mathematics of linear algebra is arguably the most useful mathematics subject for essentially all applications. We will learn some algorithms and solution methods in this course, but the focus even for practical applications is much more on some big mathematical ideas and concepts and less on the skills of hand computation than in some subjects. The modern uses of linear algebra and matrices are mostly to problems so large that they demand the use of computer tools, so it is the ability to understand and manage these tools that is needed, and this rests on conceptual understanding. So be aware that a great weight will be on concepts and “what-if” and not just solving problems by hand.

Textbook: Linear Algebra with Applications by Jeffrey Holt

The course will cover most of Chapters 1 through 6 and also 8. (Students are assumed to know already something about vectors from Math 126.) A detailed syllabus will be linked to the website.

Tests: There will be two Midterms and a Final Exam (the latter at the official UW time for each section). There may also be occasional short quizzes (announced in advance) and in-class work that will sometimes be collected - not graded but counted as participation (not announced in advance). The latter are mostly for me to get a sense of how the class is doing, but for students who are present and successful on these assessments, a modest number of points will be awarded.

Homework on WebAssign: Homework (or most of it) will be online homework on WebAssign. You will need to purchase a WebAssign account. To log in, you will go to

www.webassign.net/washington/login.html

and log in with your UW net id and password. This will take you into the usual UW login page and get you into WebAssign. You have a short period of free use before you have to pay, so you can log in right away.

Homework Schedule: Like all math courses, a linear algebra course is not a spectator event. So it is important to do lots of problems. There will be one major problem set each week, but sometimes some shorter ones will be assigned as well to help students learn important new math right away.

Other Problems and Practice exercises: To get a clear picture of the variety of situations that can occur in linear algebra, it is really important to have experience with a rich set of examples. Some of thes will be provided by the homework assignments. But if you still feel unsure, there are plenty of examples on the web, and of course the odd-numbered problems are available in the textbook.

Computing Technology: You should make friends with a calculator or software (on a computer or on a website) to do bigger, more complicated computations.

Grading Formula: Homework assignments and quizzes = 16%, in-class participation work = 4%, Each Midterm = 20%, Final Exam = 40%

I will set the grade scale for the course at the end of the quarter. My preliminary estimate is that the scale will be linear, with 4.0 = 93% and 2.0 = 65%. The actual grading scale will be no tougher than this preliminary estimate, so your course grade will be at least as good as the preliminary scale indicates.