The Homepage of

Math 140A Sections 4 and 5

Math 251 Sections 3 and 6

      Fall Semester, 2001      

 

 
 

 
Instructor

Zachary S. Tseng
301C Whitmore Lab
865-1403
tseng@math.psu.edu

Office Hours:

Monday: 4:40 - 5:30 PM
Thursday: 12:20 - 1:10 PM
or by appointment

 
Quiz/Homework grader:   Alison DeBree         adebree@psu.edu

 
Class time and location:

 
MATH 140A.4
MWF:  02:30-03:20P  075 WILLARD
TR:  02:30-03:45P  075 WILLARD
 
MATH 140A.5
MWF:    03:35-04:25P  018 HEND
TR:   04:15-05:30P  018 HEND
 
MATH 251.3
MWRF:  11:15-12:05   373 WILLARD
 
MATH 251.6
MWRF:  01:25-02:15P   115 E E WEST

 
 

ANNOUNCEMENT

General Freebies from CAC and Microsoft
This is probably an old news to some of you, but I think many are still unaware of this giveaway. A program has existed for the past few years to provide PSU students, free of charge, full featured version of selected Microsoft products. Currently MS Office 2000 (professional edition, i.e. including PowerPoint presentation software not normally included in the small business edition that comes preloaded with many PCs), FrontPage 2000, Visual Studio Pro, and Windows 98/2000/ME are available. For more details, see Penn State - Microsoft Information. Go get your copy!

8-23-2001: [Math 140A] Quiz#1 will be given on Thursday, August 30.

8-24-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#1 will be given on Wednesday, August 29. It's due on Thursday, August 30.

8-29-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#2 will be given on Wednesday, September 5. It's due on Thursday, September 6.

8-30-2001: [Math 140A] Quiz#2 will be given on Thursday, September 6.

9-5-2001: [Math 140A] Quiz#3 will be given on Thursday, September 13.

[Math 251] Quiz#3 will be given on Wednesday, September 12. It's due on Thursday, September 13.

9-12-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#4 will be given on Wednesday, September 19. It's due on Thursday, September 20.

9-13-2001: [Math 140A] Sample exams from previous semesters for Math 140A

9-20-2001: [Math 140A] Quiz#4 will be given on Thursday, September 27.

9-24-2001: [Math 140A] Exam I result:

Section 4: Avg = 73.63 ; St. Deviation = 19.11
Section 5: Avg = 68.98 ; St. Deviation = 20.38

The highest score is 100, lowest score is, well, below 30.

9-27-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#5 will be given on Wednesday, October 3. It's due on Thursday, October 4.

[Math 140A] Quiz#5 will be given on Thursday, October 4.

10-3-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#6 will be given on Thursday, October 11. It's due on Friday, October 12.

Exam I result:

Section 3: Avg = 82.54 ; St. Deviation = 14.88
Section 6: Avg = 86.13 ; St. Deviation = 10.21

[Math 140A] Quiz#6 will be given on Thursday, October 11.

10-4-2001: [Math 140A] Sample (midterm #2) exams from previous semesters for Math 140A

10-10-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#7 will be given on Wednesday, October 17. It's due on Thursday, October 18.

10-17-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#8 will be given on Wednesday, October 24. It's due on Thursday, October 25.

[Math 140A] Exam II result:

Section 4: Avg = 67.65 ; St. Deviation = 20.84
Section 5: Avg = 69.20 ; St. Deviation = 17.26

The highest score is 100, lowest score is in the low 30s.

Quiz#7 will be given on Thursday, October 25.

10-24-2001: [Math 140A] Quiz#8 will be given on Thursday, November 1.

[Math 251] Quiz#9 will be given on Monday, October 29. It's due on Wednesday, October 31, at the beginning of the exam at 6:30 PM.

11-1-2001: [Math 251] Quiz#10 will be given on Wednesday, November 7. It's due on Thursday, November 8.

11-9-2001: [Math 140A] Quiz#9 will be given on Thursday, November 15.

[Math 251] Quiz#11 will be given on Wednesday, November 14. It's due on Thursday, November 15.

11-12-2001: [Math 140A] Exam III result:

Section 4: Avg = 81.00 ; St. Deviation = 16.46
Section 5: Avg = 82.67 ; St. Deviation = 11.88

The highest score is 100.

11-19-2001: [Math 140A] Quiz#10 will be given on Thursday, November 29.
Practice exams (same as Math 140's, because we'll be having a common final exam with Math 140)

[Math 251] Quiz#12 will be given on Wednesday, November 28. It's due on Thursday, November 29.

Past announcements
 

 
 
Math 251 Information

Course syllabus

Homework assignments

Section-by-section conversion chart between the 6th and 7th editions of the textbook

Extra-credit term paper info

Some extra-credit questions

 

Upcoming Events
 
 
Final Exam

Date: Friday, December 14

Time: 6:50 to 8:40 PM

Location: 100 Thomas

Format: partial-credit questions

 
Calculators are NOT allowed during the exam.

Grading Policy

 Total of 450 points:

100 pts - Midterm I
100 pts - Midterm II
150 pts - Final Exam
100 pts - In-class (quizzes)

 
Math 140A Information

Course syllabus

Homework assignments

Some extra-credit questions

 

Upcoming Events
 
 
Final Exam Review

Date: Sunday, December 9

Time: 3:45 to 5:00(?) PM

Location: 62 Willard

 
Final Exam

Date: Thursday, December 13

Time: 8:00 to 9:50 AM

Location: 102 Thomas

Format: 16 multiple-choice, 4 T/F, and 4 partial-credit questions.

Calculators are NOT allowed during the exam.

Grading Policy

 Total of 600 points:

100 pts - Midterm I (9-17-2001)
100 pts - midterm II (10-15-2001)
100 pts - Midterm III (11-7-2001)
150 pts - Final Exam
150 pts - In-class (quizzes/homewrok)

(Geeky) Comics
Dilbert

FoxTrot

Doctor Fun

 
 

MATH 251 Resource

Tools and info for and about differential equations.

 

MATH 140A Resource


Features

 
Zach's MathMagic Land!
(with apologies to Donald Duck and Disney®)

A Math party trick - one of many that you have seen/will see I am sure. But this one comes with a detailed explanation...

The Calculus Student's Lament
A poem by Professor P. F. Baum of the Math Department. It is a poem by a professor dedicated to students of calculus classes.

Notes on number systems
Facts on number systems from the set of natural numbers to the field of complex numbers.

One thing to avoid when writing a term paper
An example of what could happen if you only use the spell checker but not the grammar checker

Is 99.9% really good enough?
To students, 99.9% is certainly an excellent mark, a solid A, only 0.1% away from perfection. But is it really good enough? What if the real world works this way...

The Klein Bottle
What is it? It is a non-orientable (i.e. it only has one distinct side) surface that can be described as the object obtained by gluing the (only) side of a Mobius strip together. Click on the link for details.

 

 

Useful Links

Some Math resource on the web:

 
Lorenz Attractor
The trace of a Lorenz Attractor, the discovery of which led to the theory of Chaos. (Click on the image for a bigger picture.)

Here is an example of a fractal, what appears to be of a Julia set type.

On the left is an instance of a simple fractal known as the "Sierpinski Triangle" (or "Sierpinski Gasket"). It can be easily drawn on your graphics calculator - if you have a TI-82 model, you can find a sample program doing exactly this on page 14-8 of its manual.

Here is a picture of me, your friendly instructor, on one of my good days....

Alison's homepage - the personal page of your grader... So now you know who is really responsible for that bad grade you got on your last quiz.

Study Break:

How to move pet rocks           How NOT to move a gorilla

 


Are there times that you just can't finish a seemingly easy (which it actually might very well be) problem? Well, here is a quote I found which shows that you (we) are not the only ones who feel this way sometimes....
"Now I have to do an arithmetical problem and of course it doesn't want to solve, such pig and filth!"

Anastasia Romanova*, circa 1912 / 13

* - Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaievna (1901-1918) of imperial Russia; yes, of the movies "Anastasia" (1956 and 1997) fame.


 

Top Five Lies Told by Teaching Assisstants/Fellows:

5. I'm not going to grant any extensions.
4. Call me any time. I'm always available.
3. It doesn't matter what I think; write what you believe.
2. Think of the midterm as a diagnostic tool.
1. My other section is much better prepared than you guys.

Top Eleven Excuses for Not Doing the Math Homework:

  1. I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into flames.
  2. Isaac Newton's birthday.
  3. I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. I couldn't actually reach it.
  4. I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in this margin.
  5. I was watching the World Series and got tied up trying to prove that it converged.
  6. I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.
  7. I locked the paper in my trunk but a four-dimensional dog got in and ate it.
  8. I couldn't figure out whether i am the square of negative one or i is the square root of negative one.
  9. I took time out to snack on a doughnut and a cup of coffee.
  10. I spent the rest of the night trying to figure which one to dunk.
  11. I could have sworn I put the homework inside a Klein bottle, but this morning I couldn't find it.

Send any question/comment about this page to: tseng@math.psu.edu

Last modified: December 7, 2001