Math 114, Lectures 001 and 002 - Fall 2008

Instructor: Ted Chinburg

TA's for section 001:

• Torcuto Battaglia; office DRL 4C1, phone 898-7836, Email: torcuato@math.upenn.edu
• Michael Robinson; office DRL 3C5, phone 898-6285, Email: robim@math.upenn.edu

TA's for section 002:

• Pilar Herreros; office DRL 4C11, phone 898-5973, Email: pherrero@math.upenn.edu
• Chenxu He; office DRL 4N21, phone 898-5043, Email: hech@math.upenn.edu

Announcements concerning the course.

This year's Will Hunting Award Winners!

1. "Strategies for Preparing to ask a Girl Out on a Date" by Anonymous
2. "Avoiding speeding tickets and accidents," by Joseph Kushner
3. "Dieting," by Matthew Martos

Additional Notes

Base Jump

The Droste Effect as an example of orthogonal trajectories in Escher drawings.

Party affiliation graph.

The Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, and Gaudi's upside down hanging model for optimizing the forces in the structure

Art and perspective

• C. W. Tyler's web page about art
• The rules of perspective
• Examples from the renaissance
• Salvador Dali and three point perspective
• The Mona Lisa
• The Mona Gorilla

Baseball pitches and components of acceleration

The evolution of Mickey Mouse and a related Maple worksheet

The crab research buggy

The tip that won't tip over

Maple and Excel Examples

1. The Logistic equation and college costs (Maple file)
2. Gun ownership and fatalities (Excel file)
3. Al Qaeda In Baghdad projection (Maple file)
4. Parachute jumps (Maple file)

Extra Credit Problems

1. A standing extra credit problem for the course is to develop a new application of the ideas each chapter. This application should come from a situation or question not already discussed in the book. More credit will be given for a complete mathematical anaylsis of the situation or question. Write up and give you application to your TA in recitation. After we have complete each chapter of the book, the Will Hunting Award for that chapter will go to the most creative and interesting applications. These will be posted on the course web page. I will e-mail you if you are a winner to ask if you would like your name posted with your application. If you decide not to have your name posted, you can certainly still tell your friends!

2. Calculus and criminology

3. Gaudi's upside down scale model of the Sagrada Familia cathedral

4. Improving on Galileo

5. Precessing Wheels I

6. Precessing Wheels II

7. Balancing Blocks

Some interesting web pages

1. A mathematical analysis of the assassination attempt on the President of Taiwan on March 19, 2004. This analysis was done by Prof. Ching-Li Chai of the Penn mathematics department.

Info pages for undergraduate math:

• Main Math 114 Home Page
• Math Advising Homepage
• General Mathematics Undergraduate Information

• Class meetings for section 001 are MWF from 11:00 - 12:00 pm in DRL A1.
• Class meetings for section 002 are MWF from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. in DRL A1.

• My Office Hours will be on Mondays between 3 and 4 p.m in a room whose location I will post on my office door (room 4E4 of DRL labs). If you cannot meet then, please e-mail me to arrange to meet at a different time. E-mail is also a very good way to discuss homework problems.

• My office is DRL 4E4, tel. 898-8340, email address: ted@math.upenn.edu.

• The schedule of recitations for our sections is posted on the math course link of the registrar's home page.

• The Mathematics Department Office is DRL 4W1, tel.: 8-8178.

The dates for the hour exams are tentative

 Quizzes (weekly in recitation):                25%
 Hour exam 1 (Wed. Oct. 8):                     10%
 Hour exam 2 (Mon. Nov. 3):                     10%
 Hour exam 3 (Fri. Dec. 5):                     10%
 Final Exam (Wed. Dec. 17, 12 to 2 p.m. ):      45%
 
 Each week homework problems from
 the text will be assigned as practice
 to prepare for the quizzes and the next hour exam.
 This homework will not be collected
 or graded, however.  Extra credit problems
 will be posted periodically.  Your work on these
 problems will be used in deciding your final course
 grade in case you are on the borderline between two
 letter grades.
 

The Course Schedule, Syllabus and Homework Policy:

The Course Schedule describes which sections of the text will be discussed in lecture each day, based on the Course Syllabus. Both these items are linked to a list of core homework problems for each sections of the text. It is important to work through these homework problems on your own, and to discuss them in recitation, in order to be prepared for the hour exams. The course T.A.'s will correct and return to you any written solutions to any homework problem you give them, and they will discuss the homework in recitation in order to provide feedback.

Exams:

• First Hour exam: Wed. Oct. 8
  
  Note: The last day to drop a class is Friday, Oct. 10. See Penn's 3 year academic calendar
  
  
• Second Hour exam: Monday, Nov. 3.
  
  
• Third Hour exam: Friday, Dec. 5.
  
  
• Final exam: The common math 141 final exam is now scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 17, from 12 to 2 p.m. . The location of the exam will be announced later in the semester.
  

Grading notes: At the end of the semester, everyone who has not withdrawn from the class will get a grade. Incompletes will not be given to avoid F's.

Information on the The Math Help System

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ted@math.upenn.edu
Oct. 8, 2008