Lecturer (the "I" and "me" in this page): Gary
Baumgartner, SS1080 (temporary phone: 716-2056),
baumgart@math.toronto.edu.
Teaching Assistant: Graham Gill.
This area will contain ongoing announcements relevant to students in this course, including descriptions of the updates to the rest of this page.
Please be sure to read the discussion later in this page about the Base problem sets, it may be clearer than I was yesterday in class. Also, just write a minimal amount for these, and don't expect to have to work too hard on them. The main problem sets are where you should spend energy on explaining yourself clearly and with some detail.
I've put in the currently decided office hours. Let me know if you want to go to them but the times become inconvenient. Also, if anyone would prefer office hours with Graham (our T.A.) let me know and we'll arrange them. I won't take it personally, I only care what helps you learn (in fact I'll be impressed that a student is taking control of their learning).
For those who've looked at this page before, note that I adjusted the marking scheme, moving 5% from the exam to the main problem sets. Doing problems is good. Relying on a miracle for the exam is bad.
The information on this web page is tentative and will probably change a bit before the course officially starts, and especially after I consult the students in the first week of classes.
Some students have asked for information or advice about whether to take this course. This web page is partly here (especially this early) to help them make their decision. If you'd like more information (whether you've decided or not) please let me know. If you'd like to be notified whenever I make an important update to this page just ask and I'll email you.
Many degree programs have a linear algebra requirement but give you flexibility in fulfilling it. Some require MAT240 or MAT223, some require MAT240 or both MAT233 & 224, and others require MAT240 or MAT223 and MAT247 or MAT224. MAT240 covers roughly two thirds of MAT223 and one third of MAT224, but covers its material in more depth than those two courses and with more abstraction.
I would recommend MAT240 instead of MAT223 to any student who is interested and willing to do some work. I would hope that my version of the course is `doable' for any such student, and I have some specific techniques (some you can already see on this page) for achieving this. In particular, the course will not be only `abstract', rather the abstraction will usually be a unifying framework for the computations which we'll do.
Is MAT240 harder than MAT223? This depends on you (and I suppose us, since we provide tutorial support for MAT240 but not MAT223, and for the summer session we're going at the regular pace). MAT240 rewards understanding more than it does memory, speed and precision.
Is MAT240 harder than MAT137? Again it depends on you. There's a bit of a split in mathematics between the `algebraic' and `analytic (calculus)' styles, and which you prefer will affect whether you find MAT137 or MAT240 easier. I know specifically of a student who found MAT137 easier than MAT240 and another who found it harder.
It's worth noting that some of the Computer Science programs allow (and in fact encourage) students to take the single half course MAT240 instead of the two half courses MAT223/224. Especially for the later year Computer Science courses, they need their students to have some `mathematical maturity' and ability to handle abstraction, more than any specific mathematical content.
Textbook: Linear Algebra by Friedberg, Insel & Spence, 3rd edition.
1st half of course: Appendix on Functions, chapters 1-3
over the field of real numbers only.
2nd half of course: Appendices on Fields, Complex numbers
and Polynomials. Continue with chapters 4-5.
Most of the material from the starred sections of the text will not be covered.
Lectures: TR 6-7:25, in MP 118 (in the lobby of McLennan
Physics).
Tutorials: TR 7:35-8:30, also in MP 118.
Summer session classes run from Monday May 17 to Friday August 13 with exams in the following week. Thursday July 1 is a university holiday; other university holidays are on Mondays and Fridays so don't affect us much.
On our first day of class we'll have a lecture in the tutorial time. I may also steal some time from tutorials to make up for lecture time lost to tests.
However, I consider tutorials important, so if students start to skip the tutorials to leave early I may change the tutorial times to discourage it!
You get a fair amount of tutorial time, please make use of it. Ask questions, explain your thoughts, and do your part to help the tutor help you.
My office is SS 1080, but we'll move to the MAC for office hours if we need more space. The MAC for this summer is in room SS 1078. As far as I know, the only college that runs a MAC during the summer is Woodsworth.
Lecturer's office hours: W5:00-6:30; joint with
MAT137, TR 1:00-3:00.
Teaching assistant's MAC hours: none.
I assume some MAT240 students will want to come only in the evening, which is the reason for the Wednesday time: let me know. Also, I don't expect many MAT137 students during the Thursday time, so let me know if it's good for you.
These are relatively easy problem sets due every lecture (hear me out!). They will help you keep up, understand the lectures and do the main problem sets. They'll also make sure you learn the basics even if you don't do so well with the more difficult material. But what if:
You do very well and like to set your own study habits? Or,
It takes you time to catch on to the course? Or,
You miss a few lectures or have difficulty scheduling time between lectures?
Well, these problem sets will be marked on a quota system relative to how well you do in the rest of the course. If you're just close to passing in the rest of the course, you'll need to do about half of these base problems correctly to earn the 5%. If you're doing better, less of the base questions would be required for this 5%, until at 95% on the rest of the course you wouldn't have to do any. Specifically, if M is your mark in the rest of the course, you need to do 95%-M of the base questions correctly to earn the 5%.
I believe that this scheme has no drawbacks for the students, but let me know if you see any. I'll mark these myself to help me keep in touch with the class.
Five or six of them.
During an entire evening's class, so you're not too rushed. We could have just two tests, if the students prefer, but for the moment I'm assuming there's a preference for spreading out the marks to three tests, and making the tests a bit more focussed.
Exams are the week of Monday August 16. I will request from the Faculty of Arts & Science an evening sitting on the Tuesday or Thursday. By the way, they begin exactly at the posted times, not 10 minutes after.
We ask all students to review the Rules for Conduct of Examinations.
Here hopefully will be a list of links that hopefully relate to the material that we cover in this course.
| Last updated: Wednesday May 19, 1999 | [ MAT 240H || Department of Mathematics || University of Toronto ] |