ANNOUNCEMENTS
MTH 255H - Spring 2003

6/14/03

Grades have been submitted and should be available through Online Services. You can pick up your exam from me this summer (but I'll be away most of next week), or 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 available in my office.

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

2. (a) I, II, I, II (b) Figures 2 & 4 (c) 0, +, 0, -

3. -32 Pi

4. (a) B (b) 0 (c) 9 Pi

5. (a) 2 Pi (b) 0 (c) 2 Pi

6. -81/2 Pi

7. 171 Pi

8. 2/3

6/5/03

You have 3 choices for the final; simply show up at one of the times below:

Tu 6/10 4 PM Kidd 364

Tu 6/10 6 PM Kidd 350

Th 6/12 9:30 AM Bexl 322

This will only work if there is no discussion of the exam with anyone except me between Tuesday and Thursday; those taking the exam Tuesday will be asked to promise this in writing, and those taking it on Thursday will be asked to certify compliance.

6/3/03

The final is currently scheduled for 9:30-11:20 AM on Thursday 6/12, but stay tuned for possible changes.

• 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 Chapters 19 and 20. 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.
• If you are looking for extra problems to practice on, the Review Exercises and Check your Understanding questions at the end of each chapter are especially good.
• You may also wish to look at §16.4-§16.9, and §15.9 in Stewart, as well as the review section at the end of Chapter 16. There is also a nice review in §16.10.
• 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.
• Other rules are as announced below for the midterm.
• 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.

5/5/03

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; see me if you want to take a look at (or copy) the solution key.

1. conservative; potential=ln(x)+yz+ e^xy²sin(z)

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

3. e²/2+e-3/2

4. 1

5. (16 + 12 Pi) grams

4/25/03

Office hours today (Friday) are canceled; sorry.

4/23/03

A short paper describing the material in Wednesday's lecture can be found here; this material is not in the text.

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

4/14/03 (7 PM)

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

4/7/03

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

You are strongly encouraged to take a look at the MTH 255 home page, and to periodically check its announcement page as well as this one. The schedule you will find there is also a reasonable indication of what we will cover, even though we will use a different textbook.

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