ANNOUNCEMENTS
MTH 255 - Spring 2003

All chapter numbers are based on the Early Transcendentals version of the 4th edition of the text,
and must be increased by one for the Multivariable version.
For further information, click here.

6/14/03

Grades have been submitted and should be available through Online Services. You can pick up your exam this summer from Sam (but he's away until 6/23), or from one of us in the fall.

6/13/03

Strange but true: The 13th of the month is more likely to be a Friday than any other day of the week!

6/11/03

Below are the answers to the final; an answer key is posted outside my office.

1. 3

2. (a) conservative; potential is x³+yz²+xe^ysinz (b) not conservative

3. (a) No, Yes, No, Yes (b) 0, +, 0, -

4. -32 Pi

5. (a) 162 Pi (b) 162 Pi (c) H (d) Stokes' Theorem & curl(G=H

6. (a) 2 Pi (b) 0

7. 9 Pi

8. 2/3 ln 3

6/5/03

The final will be in StAg 106 for students in the 10:30 recitation section, and in Kidder 350 for everyone else.

6/4/03

During finals week, I will hold office house from 9 AM - 12 PM on Monday, and Sam will hold office hours from 12-2 PM on Monday and from 10 AM - 12 PM on Tuesday.

6/3/03

The final is 6-7:50 PM on Tuesday 6/10, in a location to be announced later this week.

• The final will be roughly twice as long as the midterm, and will cover material from the entire course.
• The old material is described below in the midterm announcement.
• The new material emphasizes Lessons 12-15 (surface integrals and applications) in the Study Guide, as well as the related material in Lessons 9-11.
• The relevant sections in the text are §16.4-§16.9, and §15.9. Please bear in mind that the presentation in class differed somewhat from that in the text; we covered topics in class that are not in the text, and there is material in the text which we did not cover.
• You may wish to look at the review section at the end of Chapter 16. There is also a nice review in §16.10.
• You may also wish to look at Chapters 19 and 20 of the text by McCallum et al, which is on reserve, and which is an excellent source of additional practice problems. (The Review Exercises and Check your Understanding questions at the end of each chapter are especially good.)
• The exam is closed book, and calculators may not be used.
• You may bring 1 sheet (8½"×11"; one side; handwritten) of notes, as well as the handout containing the formulas for divergence and curl in spherical and cylindrical coordinates.
• Please write your exams in pencil or black ink (blue ink is OK).
• Please turn off all electronic devices, such as cell phones and alarms; this also includes personal music players.
• Both Wednesday and Friday will be devoted to review. Come prepared to ask questions!

6/2/03

A PDF version of the figure I tried to draw in class today can be found here. The curves shown are xy=1, xy=2, xy²=1, and xy²=4.

5/29/03

As part of the Postscript week of the Paradigms in Physics program, I will give a talk entitled:

Geometry, Relativity, and All That

Wednesday, 6/4, 1 PM, Weniger 304F

This talk builds nicely on some of the concepts in vector calculus; no physics background is required.

5/23/03

You can run the software I used in today's demonstration yourself! All you need to do is click here, then follow the first link. Since it's written in Java, it *should* work on just about any computer.

5/14/03

Formulas for gradient, curl, and divergence in rectangular, cylindrical, and spherical coordinates can be found here.

You can find a discussion of their derivation in the excellent book Div, Grad, Curl and All That by Schey, which is (or soon will be) on reserve at the library.

5/8/03

Sam's office hours next Tuesday (5/13) are canceled. He will instead have office hours on Thursday (5/15) from 3-5 PM, and Friday (5/16) from 1-2 PM.

5/5/03

A PDF version of the transparency I showed today can be found here. This picture was drawn by Kerry Browne as part of his PhD thesis in Physics Education here at OSU, entitled Student Use of Visualization in Upper-Division Problem Solving.

5/2/03

I will be giving the Mathematics Department Colloquium this coming Tuesday, 5/6/03, at 3 PM, in Kidder 364. The topic will be vector calculus. Further information can be found here.

5/1/03

Here are some online resources about planimeters:

• Planimeter 1
• Planimeter 2
• Planimeter 3
• Planimeter 4

4/30/03

Below are the answers to the midterm; an answer key will be posted outside my office.

1. (a) 4 (b) 0 (c) 0 (d) 2 k

2. conservative; potential=x²+yz+ e^xy²sin(z)

3. (a) not conservative (b) conservative (c) not conservative (d) conservative

4. 3/5

5. Pi²/4

6. 16 + 24 Pi

4/25/03

Office hours today (Friday) are canceled; sorry.

4/22/03

You are strongly encouraged to attend Wednesday's lecture; this material is not in the text.

A short paper describing our approach to this material can be found here.

(I recommend not reading this paper until after the lecture.)

4/21/03

The midterm is 12 PM on Wednesday 4/30 in Withycombe 109.    This is not our regular classroom.

• The primary focus of the midterm is Lessons 7-8 (line integrals) in the Study Guide, including the necessary background material from Lessons 1.5 and 2.5 (differentials) and Lesson 6 (vector fields). Some material from Lesson 1 (parametric curves) and Lesson 3 (gradient) is also fair game.
• The relevant sections in the text are §13.1-§13.4, §14.6, and §16.1-§16.3. Please bear in mind that the presentation in class differed somewhat from that in the text; we covered topics in class that are not in the text, and there is material in the text which we did not cover.
• You may wish to look at the review sections at the end of Chapters 13, 14, and 16.
• You may also wish to look at Chapters 17 and 18 of the text by McCallum et al, which is on reserve, and which is an excellent source of additional practice problems. (Some of your homework comes from this book.)
• The exam is closed book, and calculators may not be used.
• You may bring a 3×5 index card (both sides) of handwritten notes;
• Please write your exams in pencil or black ink (blue ink is OK).
• Please turn off all electronic devices, such as cell phones and alarms; this also includes personal music players.
• Friday's lecture will be devoted to review. Come prepared to ask questions!

4/14/03 (7 PM)

This week's homework has finally been posted; sorry about the delay.

4/7/03

Sam's office hour tomorrow (Tuesday, 4/8/03) is canceled.

He will hold additional office hours this week on Thursday, from 3-5 PM, and on Friday, from 10-11 AM.

A copy of the figure I drew today in class, showing the construction of dr in polar coordinates, can be found here.

For better quality when printing, a PDF version can be found here.

You can find our paper on spherical coordinates here.

4/4/03

You can find out more about magnetic declination at this site. Especially interesting are the links to online maps available in the section on determining the declination. (Search for "On-line Isogonic charts".)

4/3/03

You can use this website to determine the magnetic deviation (angle between true north and magnetic north) for any location. You will need to know the latitude and longitude -- or the zip code. (Enter a zip code, press the button labeled "Get Location", then press the button labeled "Compute".) The first number in the output, labeled D, is what you want -- positive numbers denote magnetic deviations EAST.

3/28/03

There are two vector calculus texts on reserve:

Stewart, Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 4th edition (the official textbook);

Hughes-Hallett et al, Calculus: Single and Multivariable, 3rd edition (the source of some homework problems).

Click here for the catalog info at the Valley Library.

(The catalog also shows an alternate copy of the second book, which is missing.)

3/24/03

Make sure to read the note about the various editions of the text.

Make sure to read the grading policy.

Good things to review:

• Vectors (§12.2-§12.5)
• Chain Rule (§14.5)
• Double Integrals (§15.3-§15.4)
• Parametric Curves (§13.1-§13.2)
• Gradient (§14.6)

Note that the material in Lessons 1-5 (but not 1.5 & 2.5) in the Study Guide, covering §13.1-§13.4 & §14.6-§14.8, has been moved to MTH 254.