Fall, 2001
(MWF 12:00)
in Physics Lecture Room 1,
in the
Howey Building
Recitations will take place in various rooms
in the
Skiles Building on Tuesday and Thursday, as detailed on
OSCARWeb.
Instructor: Evans Harrell, Office Skiles 134, 894 4312,
harrell@math.gatech.edu
Instructor's office periods: MWF 1:15-2:30,
Skiles 134
Assistants:
Class web page: http://www.math.gatech.edu/~harrell/1501/ It is your responsibility to consult the web page regularly for information about the class. The web page will contain the definitive information about the class, such as homework assignments. The web page will also give you e-mail contact with the instructor and the teaching assistant, and we shall do our best to respond to your questions. Electronic mail has swollen to flood proportions, so please do not be upset if the response is delayed or brief. Information of use to the whole class may be posted on our faq list. The faq may be the quickest way to answer routine questions.
Required texts:
Salas, Hille, and Etgen, Calculus
Required software:
Description: Calculus is not only essential in science and engineering; it is one of mankind's greatest intellectual achievements. After thousands of years of confusion on the part of philosophers, Newton, Leibniz, and Euler created the tools for understanding the infinite and the infinitesimal. Learning calculus is arguably your most important educational experience at Tech. It is challenging, and it can be rewarding and enjoyable. (Click here for more propaganda.)
In this first term there are several themes:
Grading and requirements: There will be in-term tests on
Students' grades will depend on the following quantity:
T1 + T2 + T3 + T4 + Q + F -min(T1..T4,F) + EC + F/2 ,
where the components of this formula correspond to the ingredients
mentioned above, after scaling so that all of them except EC =
extra credit
total have a common median. There will be no opportunities for
make-up tests after the fact. As you can work out,
the grade system includes a drop. The drop is not a right, but
simply a convenient way to cope with absence or poor performance
due to illness or other personal situations. In a large class like this,
such events are common. You will not need, or benefit from, formal excuses.
Abuse this privilege at your peril!
We do not have a fixed idea of how many students will get A's, B's, etc., but will decide the grade divisions after review of individual tests, including the final exam. Normally, the median grade in Georgia Tech calculus classes is a C+.
Calculators and tests. No restrictions will be placed on the use of calculators that do elementary mathematics on the tests. Calculators that can do calculus symbolically on the date of a test will be confiscated and donated to the School of Mathematics. No credit will be given on tests for a correct answer without the intermediate steps.
Readings. The schedule of reading will be posted on the 1501 assignments page. The subject matter covered will be as follow:
This course will benefit from many on-line materials, which you can access with the software in the student software suite, especially Netscape, Maple, and Acrobat. There is a home page for the class at http://www.math.gatech.edu/~harrell/1501/, and there are many other useful things at the School of Mathematics page for on-line resources: http://www.math.gatech.edu/~bourbaki/, as well as at the vector calculus page at mathphysics.com
Scientists and Engineers today do mathematics differently than in the past. Complicated calculations can be done with software such as Maple, and there are many powerful items on the World Wide Web to help you both to learn mathematics and to do it effectively. Georgia Tech is one of the leaders in incorporating these developments into our calculus classes, with Maple, Mathematica, Java, and other software. We hope that you will use software and the Internet to help with calculations and learning, but will always remember that real understanding requires you to exercise your mind as well as your fingers.