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MAS 4105, Linear Algebra I
Instructor: Frank Lübeck
Office: Little 410
Phone: (not yet available)
Office hours: MW 11:45-12:35 and by appointment, or use email to contact
me.
Classes: MTWF4 (10:40-11:30 am) in Matherly 012
Textbook
Friedberg, Insel and Spence, Linear Algebra, Forth Edition, Prentice Hall
The course will roughly cover Chapters 1 to 6 of this book.
Syllabus
The central topics of this course are vector spaces, linear transformations
and systems of linear equations.
The emphasis is on conceptual aspects. You will see abstract definitions and
rigorous proofs of all statements. In the exercises you can improve your
computational skills, as well as learn to find and write up properly proofs
of abstract statements.
I will not strictly follow the textbook and expect that you take notes
during classes. You should permanently go through your notes after class and
find and read the corresponding sections in the text book.
Homework
I will assign a list of homework problems weekly. One of the classes each
week will be used for discussion of the problems. Students are encouraged to
present their solutions.
I will occasionally collect your solutions of the homework problems, but not
grade them. Note that you can probably only follow the course if you
seriously work on the homework exercises. They are given to help you
understanding the content of the course.
Exams and Grading
The grading for the course will be based on exams.
There will be four one hour exams (during the class meetings), with each you
can get 20 points. And there will be a final exam, covering the topics of
the whole semester, worth 40 points.
For the final grading the worst one hour exam is dropped, such that you can
get at most 100 points.
Then the following grading scheme is applied:
| A | B+ | B | C+ | C | D+ | D | E |
| 86-100 | 81-85 | 76-80 | 71-75 | 66-70 | 61-65 | 51-60 | 0-50
|
Dates of exams: will be determined later.
Attendance and Missed Exams
Attending the classes is completely the students responsibility.
You can miss one of the one hour exams, which is then the one which is
dropped for the grading. Therefore there will be no make up exams.
General Policies
Students are expected to be on time in class and not to disturb other
students during class (for example with ringing cell phones).
Students requiring special classroom accomodations for disabilities must
first register with the Office of the Dean of Students. This office will
provide documentation to the student, who must then give it to the
instructor.