© | Dror Bar-Natan: Classes: 2014-15:

Math 475 - Problem Solving Seminar

Toronto, Academic Year of 2014-2015

Agenda: Solve! Solve! Write!

Instructor: Dror Bar-Natan, drorbn@math.toronto.edu (for administrative matters only; math on email is slow and prone to misunderstandings, so I generally avoid it). Office: Bahen 6178, 416-946-5438. Office hours: here.

Classes: Tuesdays 3-4 and Thursdays 2-4 at MP 134.


Course Calendar

# Week of ...  
1 January 5 Handout: About This Class.
Blackboards for Tuesday January 6.
Quiz #1 - Search for a Pattern. Quiz material: Larson's book, page 8, first 2 problems.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 23 students): 10 10 10 10 9 9 9 9 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
Blackboards for Thursday January 8.
2 January 12 Handout: Handout for January 13, "Draw a Figure".
Blackboards for Tuesday January 13.
(Quiz 2 will take place next week on Tuesday.)
Handout: Handout for January 15, "Draw a Figure" (2).
Blackboards for Thursday January 15.
3 January 19 Quiz #2 - Draw a Figure.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 17 students): 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 9.5 9 9 5 5 4 2 0
Blackboards for Tuesday January 20.
Class Photo.
Handout: Handout for January 22, "Formulate an Equivalent Problem".
Blackboards for Thursday January 22.
4 January 26 Quiz #3 - Formulate an Equivalent Problem.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 16 students): 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 7 7 5 5 5 4 4 3 2
Blackboards for Tuesday January 27.
Handout: Handout for January 29, mostly "Choose an Effective Notation".
Blackboards for Thursday January 29.
A Mathematica notebook for Larson's Problem 1.5.4.
5 February 2 Quiz #4 - Choose an Effective Notation.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 16 students): 10 9.5 9 8 8 8 8 7 7 6 5 5 4 2 1 1
Handout: Handout for February 3, "Choose an Effective Notation".
Blackboards for Tuesday February 3.
Handout: Handout for February 5, "Choose an Effective Notation" and "Exploit Symmetry".
Blackboards for Thursday February 5.
A Mathematica notebook for the Kauffman bracket.
6 February 9 Blackboards for Tuesday February 10.
Quiz #5 - Exploit Symmetry.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 14 students): 12 9.5 8.5 8 8 7 6 5 5 5 4 4 3 3
Handout: Handout for February 12, "Exploit Symmetry" and "Divide into Cases".
Blackboards for Thursday February 12.
R February 16 UofT Reading Week.
7 February 23 Quiz #6 - Around the Isoperimetric Inequality.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 14 students): 9 8 7 7 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 1
Blackboards for Tuesday February 24.
Handout: Handout for February 24, "Divide into Cases" and "Work Backwards".
Handout: Handout for February 26, "Divide into Cases", "Work Backwards", Pigeonhole.
Blackboards for Thursday February 26.
8 March 2 Quiz #7 - "Divide into Cases", "Work Backwards", the Pigeonhole Principle.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 14 students): 10 10 10 10 10 10 9 7 6 5 4 1 1 0
Blackboards for Tuesday March 3.
Handout: Handout for March 5, "Argue by Contradiction", Pigeonhole.
Blackboards for Thursday March 5.
A Mathematica notebook for the Tug of War argument.
Sunday March 8 was the last date to drop this course.
9 March 9 Quiz #8 - "Argue by Contradiction" and the Pigeonhole Principle.
Results (of 10, median underlined, 14 students): 10 10 10 9 9 8.5 8.5 7.5 7 6 3.5 2.5 2.5 1
Blackboards for Tuesday March 10.
A Mathematica notebook for the Ramsey numbers.
Handout: Handout for March 12, "Pursue Parity".
A Mathematica notebook for Problem 10.
Blackboards for Thursday March 12.
10 March 16 Quiz #9 - "Pursue Parity".
Results (of 10, median underlined, 16 students): 10 10 10 10 10 10 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9 9 9 8.5 8 6.5
A Mathematica notebook for Quiz 9 Problem 1.
Blackboards for Tuesday March 17.
Handout: Handout for March 19, "Consider Extreme Cases".
Blackboards for Thursday March 19.
11 March 23 Swapping two memory cells without using a third.
Blackboards for Tuesday March 24.
Quiz #10 - "Generalize".
Results (of 10, median underlined, 15 students): 10 10 10 10 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9 9 8.5 8 7 6 1
Handout: Handout for March 26, "Generalize".
Blackboards for Thursday March 26.
12 March 30 Blackboards for Tuesday March 31.
Quiz #11 - "Generalize".
Results (of 10, median underlined, 14 students): 10 10 10 9.5 9 9 8 7.5 7 6.5 6 6 5 2
Handout: The Final Exam and preparing for it.
My Talks at CMU.
Thursday is last day of classes, Friday is Good Friday.
F April 6 UofT Examination Period begins on Wednesday.
F April 13 UofT Examination Period.
F April 20 Our Final Exam took place on Tuesday April 21 at 9AM-12Noon, at St. Vlad.
Results (of 80, median underlined, 16 students): 80 79 78.5 78.5 77 77 76 75 74 71.5 71 70 69.5 51.5 38.5 32.5
Overall course marks (of 100, median underlined, 16 students): 98 98 97 96 95 94 93 91 89 88 88 79 63 62 58 53
F April 27 UofT Examination Period ends on Thursday.

Further resources:

"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself"
"师傅领进门,修行靠个人!"