ANNOUNCEMENTS
MTH 255 - Spring 2004

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.

6/11/04

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

1. (a) 0 (b) 12 x + 2 (c) 3

2. x³ + x e^ysin(z) + yz²

3. (a) Figures 1 and 4 are conservative (b) positive, zero, negative, zero

4. -72 Pi

5. (a) 162 Pi (b) 162 Pi (c) H

6. - (81/2) Pi

7. 171 Pi (grams! That's still a lot of chocolate!)

8. 2/3

You can collect your exam from me after Monday 6/14. I will be around this summer, but not necessarily in my office; you may wish to email me first to check my schedule.

6/4/04

Please bring your OSU ID to the final.

Did anyone lose a textbook? We found one in recitation a while ago; it has been turned in to the math office.

6/3/04

I should be in my office Monday, June 7, from 9-11:30 AM. I may also be there Monday afternoon and/or Tuesday morning, but not Wednesday; feel free to stop by and/or send email to try to set up an appointment. Corina will hold office hours Thursday morning from 10-12. And of course I'll be reading my email all week.

5/31/04

The final will be on Friday, June 11, at 7:30 AM in Gilfillan Auditorium.

• The final will be slightly less than 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 8-13 (surface integrals and applications) in the Study Guide, as well as the related material in Lesson 14.
• 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 (it's the book listed as "no author"), 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.)
• You may bring two 3×5 index cards (both sides) of handwritten notes, or the equivalent, as well as the handout containing the formulas for divergence and curl in spherical and cylindrical coordinates.
• Other rules are as announced below for the midterm.

5/21/04

There will be 2 special lectures in class next week:

• On Monday, 5/24, I will demonstrate the Vector Field Analyzer, a JAVA applet for visualizing vector fields.
• On Wednesday, 5/26, Roland de Szoeke from the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences will speak on "Observing the Oceans from Space".

5/19/04

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 which is on reserve at the library.

5/11/04

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

5/5/04

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.

4/30/04

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

1. conservative; potential function is x²y³z⁴ + x sin(y) + sin(z)

2. Figures 2 and 4 are conservative

3. 3

4. 13/3

5. (a) zero (b) positive (c) zero

6. 8 grams

4/29/04

If you'd like to learn more about using planimeters to measure area, here are some online resources:

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

4/19/04

The midterm will be Wednesday 4/28 in class.

• The primary focus of the midterm is Lessons 5-7 (line integrals) in the Study Guide, which however incorporates material from the previous lessons; everything in the first 7 lessons is 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 class will be devoted to review. Come prepared to ask questions!

4/12/04

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

4/7/04

Please do the following before tomorrow's lab: Draw at least 3 level curves of the function h = 5000 - 30 x² - 10 y².

There is a minor typo in this week's homework as originally posted. For spherical coordinates, the "tricky" path is Path 2, not Path 3. A corrected version has now been posted, replacing the original.

4/5/04

Section 012 at 1:30 PM has been moved from Wiegand 132 to Peavy 101.

4/1/04

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.

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".)

3/31/04

A JAVA applet which illustrates the geometry of the dot product can be found here.

I couldn't get the "swap" button to work as claimed; try the space bar instead.

3/30/04

You are encouraged to browse the website of the closely related Vector Calculus Bridge Project.

3/29/04

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.

3/26/04

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)