Paul Smith Math 126

Calculus -- Math 126A, 126B --- Winter 2008

Math 126 Materials Website

Old Final Exams

Additional Material,

Old Midterms, More Old Midterms,


Location for Final (Saturday 3/15 1:30--4:20) (posted on Thursday March 13)

All Exams take place in the Physics Astronomy buildings. There are two of them PAA and PAB.

126 AA + 126 AD in PAB A102

126 AB + 126 AC in PAA A102

126 BA + 126 BB in PAB A118

126 BC in PAB A110

126 BD in PAB A114


Review Session on Thursday March 13, 6--8pm. (posted on Wednesday March 12)

We meet in Miller 301


Review Session on Thursday March 6, 6--8pm. (posted on Monday March 3)

We meet in Miller 301


Homework due March 5 (posted on Monday March 3)

Please do the problems for sections 14.7, 15.1, and 15.2


Homework due February 20 (posted on Thursday February 14)

Please do the problems for sections 10.3 and 13.4.


Midterm Answers (posted on Thursday February 14)

Here are the solutions.


Practice Midterm (posted on Tuesday February 12)

I have prepared a Practice Midterm. If you can answer these questions you will be very well-prepared for the Midterm. You will see that many of the questions are taken from the 2 quizzes.


THE MIDTERM (posted on Thursday February 7 and Sunday February 11)

The Midterm is in class on Wednesday February 13. It is closed book. No notes or calculators are allowed. You must use a blue book or green book for your answers. A green book is large enough I think.

The format of the Midterm will be like the two quizzes we had earlier this quarter. Short questions and answers mostly, no elaborate calculations.

It will cover all the material we have covered so far including what we will cover on Monday 2/11.


Math is too hard for some! (posted on Thursday February 7)

From today's New York Times: "Numbers are numbers," said one senior Romney strategist. "It was impossible to get them to add up."

Maybe they should ask a junior strategist.


No class today, Monday February 4 (posted on Monday February 4)

I am sick today so am cancelling class. You should read sections 10.1 and 13.1 and do the homework assigned for those sections.


Quiz Answers for Todays quiz (posted on Thursday January 31)

here


Homework due on Wednesday February 6 (posted on Wednesday January 29)

I have gotten behind the schedule posted on the webpage. To accomodate that the homework must be shifted around. Thus, on next Wednesday hand in the homework for sections 12.6, 10.1, and 13.1.


Homework due policy (posted on Wednesday January 29)

Homework is due at the start of class on Wednesday. In future I will not accept any homework handed in after class starts. If you are in 126A that means 9:30. If you are in 126B that means 10:30.


Here is the quiz for Thursday January 31 (posted on Wednesday January 29)

The questions on Thursday's (tomorrow's) quiz will be a subset of those on the following quiz


Quiz on Thursday January 31 (posted on Monday January 27)

There is a quiz on Thursday. It will be closed book. No notes and no calculators are allowed. The material will be from Chapter 12, sections 12.1--12.5.


Answers for last week's quiz (posted on Tuesday January 22)


Quiz on Thursday January 17 (posted on Wednesday January 16)

There is a quiz on Thursday. It will be closed book. No notes and no calculators are allowed.


Next Homework (posted on Wednesday January 16)

Due at the start of class on Wednesday January 23, HW#5, and the exercises from 12.1 and 12.2.


Office Hours Change (posted on Saturday January 12)

My Friday Office Hours will be in the Math Study Center 11:30--1:30. Note the change of time. The Math Study Center closes at 1:30 on Fridays.


Taylor Series (posted on Friday January 11)

It would be a good idea to read not only the Taylor Notes but also Sections 11.8--11.12 of the book.


Your Final Grade (posted on Friday January 11)

Final 100

Midterm 60

Quizzes 50

Homework 50

Worksheet/ Attendance 40

Total 300


Homework Clarification (posted on Thursday January 10)

The schedule indicates homework problems for each lecture. You should try these problems as soon after the lecture as possible, while the lecture is fresh in your mind, and so you have plenty of time to get help if needed before the homework is due.

Each homework assignment will be graded on a scale of 30 points. Five of those points will be for completing the assignment; that is, for working all the problems through, whether or not they are completely correct. Five points will be awarded for the quality of the presentation, neatness, legibility, etc. Two problems will be graded in detail for 10 points each.

Homework will be due on Wednesdays every week except the first and last weeks of the quarter and the midterm week. Usually, the homework due will include the problems listed for the lectures on the previous Wednesday, Friday, and Monday, starting after the previous set you handed in.


Homework (posted on Wednesday January 9)

I will collect 7 or 8 homeworks during the quarter. All except the worst one will be your total score Each homework (except the one you handed in today) will be graded out of 30 points.

I would like you to write neatly and especially take care to present your work so the reader knows which step follows which. It is your job to make the grader's job easy. Some points will be given for neatness.

If your homework consists of more than one page the pages must be stapled together. If they are not stapled together only the first page will be graded.

You must put your name and quiz section on your homework. If you don't do that we will deduct five points from your score.

Homework should be written on standard A4 sized paper. The pages should not be tattered or torn. Again, five points will be deducted if you don't comply with this.

The homework you handed in today is a trial run so is only worth 15 points. You will get one point for each question you attempted, i.e., one point for each of 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 2a, 2b, 2c, and 3 points if you attempted question 3. You get 2 additional points if you wrote down your section correctly and up to 3 points depending on the overall legibility and neatness. The maximum possible is 15.


Finding an interval where the error is less than a.

Several people have had difficulty with question 2 on Homework #1, finding an interval where the error for the tangent line approximation is less than some given number (e.g., < 0.01), say a.

First thing you need to know is that there will be lots of correct answers, and any one of those is OK. It is nice to give an answer in the form [b-h,b+h] because there is some symmetry: if |b-x| is less than h, then the error is less than the desired bound, a. You have to find an h that makes this true.

Read pages 5 and 6 of the Taylor Series Notes for more detail.


TA's Office hours

Zsolt Patakfalvi: M 12:30-13:30, T 11:30-12:30 in the Math Study Center

Michael Decker: Mon 3:30-4:30, Tues 12:30-1:30 in the MSC.

Mark Hubenthal: Mon 2:30 - 3:30, Tues 1:30 - 2:30


My Office hours

I will hold my office hours in the Math Study center on Monday (1pm--2pm) and Friday (11:30am--1:30pm).


Wednesday January 9

Homework #1 due at the start of class.


Monday January 7

The first five lectures of the course cover the material in the Taylor Series Notes . Please print a copy of these for yourself.

You should also read Sections 11.8, 11.9, 11.10 of Stewart (it might actually make more sense to read these in the reverse order). It would be good to skim through these sections before coming to class on Monday. You might also gain some benefit by re-reading section 3.11 on linear approximation and tangent line approximation because what we are doing these first few lectures is a jazzed up version of that.

The idea behind Taylor Series is to approximate a function g(x) by a polynomial in the best possible way. The higher degree polynomial you use, the better you can make your approximation. For example, if you only allow a polynomial of degree one, you are approximating the graph y=g(x) by a straight line. That line is the tangent line. More precisely, the best straight line approximation to the function y=g(x) near the point x=b is the tangent line at the point (b,g(b)), namely the line y=g(b)+g'(b)(x-b).

The function g(b)+g'(b)(x-b) is the first Taylor series approximation to g(x). The second Taylor series approximation to g(x) is the degree two polynomial g(b)+g'(b)(x-b) + (1/2)g''(b)(x-b)^2.

To be complete we should also mention the zeroth Taylor series approximation: this is the degree zero polynomial g(b). At the other extreme, the "infinite Taylor series approximation" is an "infinite degree polynomial", actually called a power series. For reasonable functions the infinite Taylor series approximation is not just an approximation to g(x), but is equal to g(x). And that is wonderfully useful.

All this needs explanation, and that is why you come to class!

A good example to look at is sin(x). The higher the degree of the polynomial the better the approximation. You can see the effect of increasiing the degree n of the polynomial by going here

Homework #1 is due at the start of class on Wednesday January 9.


Thursday January 3

I will post course information here from time to time. You should also check this page on a regular basis so you have the information you need.

Our class meets in Anderson 223 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (126A at 9:30, 126B at 10:30).

The Math 126 Materials Website contains most of the information about this course that you need: the syllabus, the weekly homework, worksheets, and more. The Additional Material is especially useful.

The text book is Calculus: Early Transcendentals Multivariable by James Stewart, Edition 5e.


Quiz Sections and TAs

AA Wilson TTH 930 CDH 105

AB Wilson TTH 1030 CDH 105 wilsonsd[at]math.washington.edu PDL C-552

AC Patakfalvi TTH 930 ART 317

AD Patakfalvi TTH 1030 ART 317 pzs[at]math.washington.edu PDL C-18 http://www.math.washington.edu/~pzs/

BA Decker TTH 1030 DEN 212

BB Decker TTH 1130 DEN 212 mdsd[at]math.washington.edu PDL C-20

BC Hubenthal TTH 1030 BLM 309

BD Hubenthal TTH 1130 BLM 309 hubenjm[at]math.washington.edu PDL C-20 http://www.math.washington.edu/~hubenjm/


Office hours

I will hold my office hours in the Math Study center on Monday (1pm--2pm) and Friday (11:30am--1:30pm).