Summer 2002

Harvard Summer School
 Mathematics S21b - Summer 2002
Linear Algebra and
Differential Equations

Instructor:
Robert Winters
rwinters@math.harvard.edu
Office: SciCtr 435

Course textbook
Otto Bretscher's Linear Algebra with Applications, 2nd Edition
The text for this course is Otto Bretscher's Linear Algebra with Applications, 2nd Edition, published in 2001 by Prentice Hall. The ISBN for the text bundled with student solutions book is 0-13-011426-X. The ISBN for the text only is 0-13-019857-9. It is available at the Harvard Coop.

Announcements:

     I should be available in and around my Harvard office (SC435) on Tuesday, Aug 13 after 11am for a few hours.
     Eddie Lee will also be holding office hours on Tuesday between 2pm and 5pm in SC 333f. He can be reached at lee@math.harvard.edu.

Practice Final Exam 1 (some problems were used on midterms)
Solutions to Practice Final Exam 1
If you have any problems with fonts, try this one (all fonts embedded).

Practice Final Exam 2  
Solutions to Practice Final Exam 2

RW

Exam #3 took place on Friday, August 2. The exam covered determinants (properties, calculation, applications); discrete dynamical systems, eigenvalues (real and complex) and eigenvectors of a square matrix, diagonalization, invariant directions and invariant subspaces, stability; the Spectral Theorem and quadratic forms.

The Final Exam will take place on Wednesday, August 14, 
starting at 9:15am in Science Center Hall C.

Approximate ranges for letter grades on the midterms
Letter Grade Exam 1 Range   Exam 2 Range   Exam 3 Range
A 40-50   43-50   46-50
A- 38-39   40-42   43-45
B+ 35-37   36-39   40-42
B 32-34   33-35   36-39
B- 30-31   30-32   32-35
C+ 27-29   27-29   28-31
C 24-26   24-26   24-27
C- 21-23   21-23   21-23
D 19-20   19-20   19-20
E 0-18   0-18   0-18

Exam 1 Solutions 
The median score for this exam was 36 (out of 50).
The mean was 35. The top score was 44.

Exam 2 Solutions 
The median score for this exam was 40 (out of 50).
The mean was 37.5. The top score was 50.

Exam 3 Solutions 
The median score for this exam was 43 (out of 50).
The mean was 40.9. The top score was 50.

Calendar of Topics and Homework Assignments  

Math S21b syllabus - Summer 2002  
This syllabus has all the necessary information about texts, homework, exams, grading, etc. The initial list of topics is quite ambitious and will be adjusted as the course proceeds and in keeping with the backgrounds of the students registered in the course.

Useful Links:

Download your free Adobe Acrobat Reader for reading and printing PDF formatted documents.

Please send comments to Robert Winters.
URL: http://math.harvard.edu/~rwinters/mathS21b
Last modified:  Friday, September 06, 2002