Mathematics 1-2-3

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General Info
Previous Courses
MPPRI
Placement Report
Math 3 F09
Math 19A F09

WELCOME
to the web site for Frank Bäuerle's Mathematics courses.

What's New/What's True November 18th, 2009

bulletIt's not new, but it's pretty (awesome): e^(pi * i)+1=0. This is called Euler's identity and is arguably the most amazing and beautiful mathematical formula. Find out more about it here or here. More info on the great Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler can be found here. 2007 was the 300th (!) anniversary of his birth.
bulletAcademic Success Workshops: See http://www2.ucsc.edu/csas/ for more details. This is very useful information about effective study skills, test anxiety, note-taking skills etc. Check it out. And it's free!
bulletFree Math Department Drop-In-Tutoring: http://www.math.ucsc.edu/about/dropintutor.html
bulletA link for the adventurous Calculus Student: http://www.math.tamu.edu/~tom.vogel/gallery/gallery.html
bulletUndergraduate Colloquium: See http://www.math.ucsc.edu/seminars/index.html for details.

 

Math 3 Fall 2009: .
 

bulletThe second midterm is this week Friday, 11/20, and will cover material from section 5.4 up to and including section 7.7. Oodles of review materials are available on electronic reserves. Password is the same as before. The test modalities are also the same as last time, in particular there are no graphing or programmable calculators allowed. Please bring your ID to the test, and leave your Ipods, cell phones etc. turned off and stashed away.

There is a typo on the solutions for the Fall 06 midterm, #9. Inexplicably I wrote a 100 instead of a 50 in the second equation. This changes the answer by 50 feet, so the correct answer is approximately 8ft (rather than 58ft).


Review sessions are Thursday 4-5:45pm (with Miguel), and 7-8:45pm (with Will), both in Classroom Unit 2.
 
bulletMidterm 1 stats can be found by following the Math 3 link on the left, and then clicking on exam info. Solutions have been posted at eres.
bulletMSI sessions: Monday 5-6:10 in ARC 221, and Friday 2-3:10 in ARC 203
You can consider MSI as class-specific drop-in tutoring held by a well-trained and effective undergraduate tutor who attends all lectures just like you (should).
bulletLink to a pretty good sine graph analyzer: http://www.analyzemath.com/trigonometry/sine.htm
bulletThe sine function generated dynamically: http://www.ies.co.jp/math/products/trig/applets/graphSinX/graphSinX.html
bulletThe cycloid I showed you in class: http://www.ies.co.jp/math/java/calc/cycloid/cycloid.html
bulletHere's the link to the Wolfram Mathematics Demonstration Project used in class: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/topic.html?topic=Trigonometric+Functions&limit=20
There is LOTS of fun stuff to explore and play with. Have some fun and learn at the same time!
bulletIf you're struggling with math, you might give this book a try: "Math Study Skills" by Alan Bass, Paperback: 96 pages, Publisher: Addison Wesley; 1 edition (May 1, 2007), ISBN-10: 032151307X. See this
 
bulletTRIG in action:
Measuring Mt. Everest: http://pup.princeton.edu/books/maor/chapter_5.pdf, go to page 73 and read.
Triangulating the Indian Subcontinent: http://www.unlockingthearchives.rgs.org/themes/everest/gallery/resource/?id=252
The great Trigonometrical survey of India: http://www.positionmag.com.au/MM/content/2002/MM21/feature_2/MM21_feature_2.html

 
bulletWe will discuss the logarithmic functions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithm or http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Logarithm.html for some background on this extremely important and useful function.
bulletUse of Logarithms in Science, again using Wikipedia Links:
PH (a measure of acidity/alkalinity of a liquid): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH
Richter Scale (a measure of magnitude of earthquake strength): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_scale

There are many more examples of this type.
bulletHere is a great link for further information about the Fibonacci numbers:  http://www.barcodesinc.com/articles/fibonacci-numbers.htm
 
bulletTutoring is available as follows:
a) Free Drop-in tutoring: see
http://www.math.ucsc.edu/about/dropintutor.html for details.
b) Learning Support Services (LSS) offers many academic programs to UCSC students. One of these programs is a tutoring program, which is available to all UCSC students and is generally small groups (up to 4 people per group). Students are eligible for up to 1 hour per week per course and may sign-up for tutoring at https://eop-apps.ucsc.edu/OTSS/tutorsignup/ beginning October 6th.
c) The department keeps a list of names of people who are available for hire: http://www.math.ucsc.edu/about/tutorsforhire.html

 

Math 19A Fall 2009: .
 

bulletThe second midterm is this week Friday, 11/20, and will be up to and including section 4.1. Oodles of review materials are available on electronic reserves. Password is the same as before. The test modalities are also the same as last time, in particular there are no graphing or programmable calculators allowed. Please bring your ID to the test, and leave your Ipods, cell phones etc. turned off and stashed away.

Consider the second section of next week as your review session.
 
bulletMidterm 1 stats can be found by following the Math 19A link on the left, and then clicking on exam info. Solutions have been posted at eres.
bulletHere is the link to a list of famous curves, including the cycloid,
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Curves/Curves.html
and here to an applet that shows how to generate the cycloid:
http://www.ies.co.jp/math/java/calc/cycloid/cycloid.html
bulletHere is the link to Open Courseware materials at MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-01Fall-2006/CourseHome/index.htm
This is a great resource if you want to get a different angle at the material (and it's free).
bulletHere are the links to the articles on the catenary. This curve is given by the hyperbolic cosine function, y = cosh (x).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Catenary.html
bulletIn class we will discuss an application of the derivative: Linear Approximation. The idea of approximation will be developed further in Math 19B with the concept of infinite series, in particular with Taylor series. The link to the Taylor series applet is here: http://www.math.psu.edu/dlittle/java/calculus/taylorseries.html
bulletWe will discuss the derivatives of logarithms, and a technique called logarithmic differentiation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithm or http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Logarithm.html for some background on this extremely important and useful function.
 
bulletTutoring is available as follows:
a) Free Drop-in tutoring through the math department: see
http://www.math.ucsc.edu/about/dropintutor.html for details.
b) Learning Support Services (LSS) offers many academic programs to UCSC students. One of these programs is a tutoring program, which is available to all UCSC students and is generally small groups (up to 4 people per group). Students are eligible for up to 1 hour per week per course and may sign-up for tutoring at https://eop-apps.ucsc.edu/OTSS/tutorsignup/ beginning October 6th.
c) The department keeps a list of names of people who are available for hire: http://www.math.ucsc.edu/about/tutorsforhire.html


 

Mathematics Preparation,Placement andReview Initiative:
(MPPRI)

 

bulletThis is a project I am working on together with a colleague of mine, Nandini Bhattacharya. This work grew out of our many years of experience in the trenches of undergraduate mathematics education at UCSC and other institutions. The project comprehensively addresses the issues mentioned in the title:
Mathematics Preparation (for a subsequent math or science class)
Placement (into the appropriate math class)
Review (of mathematical concepts for subsequent math or science courses)
A successful and effective approach to these issues is crucial for a students' success in their course of study. If you want to know more about what we are up to, follow the link on the left.


 

General Stuff:

bulletLinks on Global Climate Change:
MSRI workshop: http://www.msri.org/calendar/workshops/WorkshopInfo/432/show_workshop
KQED forum:
Global Climate Change in Local Context
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R704111000
IPPC: web site: http://www.ipcc.ch/, The scientific basis: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
ClimatePrediction.Net:  http://climateprediction.net/

 
bulletTwo good web sites for info on mathematics are:
http://mathforum.org
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
bulletNot doing as well on tests as you expected? Having trouble studying effectively? Check out the improved sections on Study Tips and Test-Taking (with a section on Math & Test Anxiety) under Resources-Help.
bulletTrying to keep up with world and political events? I find http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ a good site to see what's up. For poiltics and great analysis in the US, I regularly visit Nate Silver's http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ . I also listen to NPR, PRI, BBC on FM 88.1, 88.5, 88.9, 90.3 and 91.9. The BBC's web site for international news (with live radio) is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml. For those among you that speak german and can use some alternate perspective, a terrific news and analysis  site is at http://www.spiegel.de
bulletThere IS life outside of mathematics...DARTS!
bulletAnd for some levity there are some not so recent pictures of my kids , including a few from our trip to Germany summer '02. Here's a couple more from skiing in February 2004. We went to Germany again summer 2004 and here are some pictures.
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Copyright © 1997-2008 by Frank Bäuerle, Ph.D., UC Santa Cruz.
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Last updated: April 08, 2008.
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