Overview
| Instructor | Dr. Armin Straub
MSPB 313 straub@southalabama.edu (251) 460-7262 (please use e-mail whenever possible) |
| Office hours | MWF 11:15-12:15pm, 1:15-2:15pm, or by appointment |
| Lecture | MWF, 2:30-3:20, in MSPB 350 |
| Midterm exams | The tentative dates for our two midterm exams are:
Friday, February 21 Friday, April 11 |
| Final exam | Monday, May 5 — 3:30-5:30pm |
| Online grades |
Homework Scores
Exams: USAonline (Canvas) |
| Syllabus | syllabus.pdf |
Lecture sketches and homework
To help you study for this class, I am posting lecture sketches. These are not a substitute for your personal lecture notes or coming to class (for instance, lots of details and motivation are not included in the sketches). I hope that they are useful to you for revisiting the material and for preparing for exams.
| Date | Sketch | Homework |
|---|---|---|
| 01/13 | lecture01.pdf | Homework Set 1: Problems 1-6 (due 1/24) |
| 01/15 | lecture02.pdf | Homework Set 1: Problems 7-9 (due 1/24) |
| 01/17 | lecture03.pdf | Homework Set 1: Problems 10-12 (due 1/24) |
| Overview of all homework problems | ||
About the homework
- Homework problems are posted for each unit. Homework is submitted online, and you have an unlimited number of attempts. Only the best score is used for your grade.
Most problems have a random component (which allows you to continue practicing throughout the semester without putting your scores at risk).
- Aim to complete the problems well before the posted due date.
A 15% penalty applies if homework is submitted late.
- Collect a bonus point for each mathematical typo you find in the lecture notes (that is not yet fixed online), or by reporting mistakes in the homework system. Each bonus point is worth 1% towards a midterm exam.
The homework system is written by myself in the hope that you find it beneficial. Please help make it as useful as possible by letting me know about any issues!
Online calculator
At certain points, you probably want to verify your answers to the homework problems before submitting them (so that you don't need to start over on a lengthy problem with lots of algebra). You can, of course, use any fancy calculator or various websites for that purpose. One particularly nice resource is WolframAlpha:
- For instance, to solve the initial value problem that we reviewed in Example 18 in Lecture 3, simply enter the following into WolframAlpha:
y''-y'-2y=0, y(0)=4, y'(0)=5
Sage
For more involved calculations, we will explore the open-source free computer algebra system Sage.
If you just want to run a handful quick computations (without saving your work), you can use the text box below.
A convenient way to use Sage more seriously is https://cocalc.com. This free cloud service does not require you to install anything, and you can access your files and computations from any computer as long as you have internet. To do computations, once you are logged in and inside a project, you will need to create a "Sage notebook" as a new file.