Course Announcements and Updates

 

Welcome to AMS 20 & 20A! Please visit here as often as possible to check announcements and updates about the course information.

1. Jan 4, 2016:

• A lecture slide presentation, and two notes on Matlab have been uploaded.

 

2. Jan 6, 2016:

• A new online lecture note has been posted for the course. Please see the Course Materials Tap on the left. From now, this is our main lecture note. The note will be continuosly in progress over the quarter. IF YOU FIND ANY TYPOS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

 

3. Jan 8, 2016:

• Homework 1 is posted (Due Jan 15). Pease print your name, lab section number, your TA name, and student ID clearly at the first page of your homework.

• There will be Quiz 1 next week in your lab section. Make sure you attend your lab section. You are supposed to turn in your Quiz 1 to your TA.  Please print your name, lab section number, your TA name, and student ID clearly at the top of Quiz 1. The Quiz problems are going to be similar to Homework 1.
• Hand-written lecture notes (two versions: one is *bit more* cleaner than the one from the lecture) have been posted.

 

4. Jan 13, 2016:

• An error in Lecture note 4 has been corrected in Lecture note 5.
• When you're doing homework, do not use this small font size,

• but use this large size!

 

5. Jan 20, 2016:

• Homework 2 has been posted (Due Jan 27, Wed class).
• Study for Quiz 2 next week. Quiz 2 will be based on HW2.

 

6. Jan 25, 2016:

• The online lecture note has been updated. In particular, please study section 2.7 on Numerical Approximations using the Forwrd Euler Method. You are going to learn this topic in your lab section this week.

 

7. Jan 29, 2016:

• Midterm exam is approaching, Feb 8. Please be prepared and study hard Chapters 1.1 ~ 3.4.
• Homework 3 problems have been posted and is due Feb 8. There are two types: mandatory and optional problems. You don't need to turn in the optional ones but you need to study the both types of problems for the midterm exam.
• Quiz 3 next week based on Homework 3 problems up to 3.2.
• Please read ALL new updated course information on midterm, quiz3, and hw3, in ALL tabs in the top left on this website.

 

8. Feb 1, 2016:

• Midterm exam is closed book, closed note, and no cheat sheet is allowed. Make sure you work on ALL homework problems and quiz problems seriously.
• You're welcome to bring a calculator with you, but you woudn't find it useful anyway for the exam.
• A list of must-know topics will be available soon. Please check out the Course Materials Tab on Tues, Feb 2.

 

9. Feb 2, 2016 

• A list of things to know for the midterm exam has been posted under the Course Materials Tab. Please study them thoroughly.
• Please revisit all the tabs in this course website to see if there is any new posting for the exam.

 

10. Feb 3, 2016

• DRC exam is at E2-599, 11 am -- 1:20 pm (2 hr 20 min); or 11 am -- 12:45 pm (1 hr 45 min): The DRC students should have received an email invitation already. If not, please let me know.

 

11. Feb 4, 2016 (IMPORTANT CHANGE for the DRC exam)

• The DRC exam room has been changed to E2-556, 11 am -- 1:20 pm (2 hr 20 min); or 11 am -- 12:45 pm (1 hr 45 min)

 

12. Feb 7, 2016

• One of our TAs, Richard, is going to proctor the DRC exam, and the DRC students should turn in their homework to him.

 

13. Feb 10, 2016

• The midterm exam solutions have been posted. Make sure you study them. Homework 3.5 (only for AMS 20 students) has been posted and it asks you to redo the exam in the other color. The homework will be graded as "submit" or "no-submit", there will NOT be any late homework in any forms such as email submissions. This means that you NEED to come to the class and submit it -- this is the only way to submit this homework.
• Labs this week are optional. 
• A possible time change for the Friday lab section (now: 6:30 pm -- 8:30 pm; new alternative: 5:00 pm -- 7:00 pm). Please let me or Sky know of your preference by sending emails.

 

14. Feb 17, 2016

• The midterm exam scores are available on eCommons (the class mean: 66; the class median: 69)
• You can still improve your grade as I am going to consider a higher grade between the midterm and final exam scores for your final grade. This doesn't mean that you can go easy without good scores from homework sets and quizzes.

 

15. Feb 19, 2016

• Homework 4 problmes have been posted.
• A warning message to those of you who stopped coming to the class: how many times do you decide not going to a concert or movies after you already bought tickets? Very rare. How many times you already have skipped the classes after you paid your expensive tuition? Very many. Please carefully think if this is an expected behavior as a student. Today, we had about 30 or so students in the classroom, which is only about 1/5 of the total enrollments. I wish you become more responsible in what you're committed to do, especially after paying a very expensive ticket. Some students might say that they can't come because they have to work during the class time (this shouldn't be the right thing to do anyway), which is then wasting lots of tuition money by not coming to the class. Then they fail the class. And retake it with extra tuition. So, working for tens of bucks is better than wasting couple of thousand bucks? Please think carefully which way is cleverer. Consider this as a first kind warning. If situations do not get any better, I have to think about giving you a second stronger warning. Please come to the class before it's too late.
• One more thing as a preaching mom: please use a pencil when you do math homework, exams, and quizzes, so that you can correct your solutions. A kindergarten common sense, right?
• There are still few people who forget to put their names, section numbers, IDs, and TA names in their homework. Please write them down CLEARLY. And many are encouraged to improve their handwriting as well.

 

16. Feb 22, 2016

• There was one sign error in the yellow online midterm exam solution in problem 6. Only few students spotted and corrected this typo in their homework 3.5, however, the most of the students did not. The correct solution is

              y = exp(-2(t-1)) - exp(-3(t-1)).

•  We have Quiz 4 (based on HW4 problems) this week in your lab sections. Please make sure you go to your lab section and take it.
• I continue to encourage more students to come to the class. If the current lack of class attendance doesn't get any better soon, I am going to announce future homework problems only in the class one week ahead, and post them online only five days before the due dates. 
• The due date of Homework 4 is extended and is now Feb 29 (Monday).

 

17. Feb 24, 2016

• We began Chapter 7 today. Note that the two sections (7.2 and 7.3) are review materials on linear algebra, and you are going to review 7.2 on basic properties on matrices on your own as we are NOT covering 7.2 in the class. We will jump to 7.3 after 7.1, therefore it is your key responsibility to study 7.2 and brush up your linear algebra on matrices if you need to.

 

18. Feb 26, 2016

• We will begin Chapter 7.4 and cover the remaining sections in Chapter 7 in the rest of the quarter. Please read and study 7.1 ~ 7.3 on linear algebra.
• Quiz 5 is on next week based on the Laplace transforms.

 

19. Feb 29, 2016

• Homework 5 on the Laplace transform has been posted and is due Monday, Mar 7, in class.

 

20. Mar 2, 2016

• Please participate the AMS 20/20A course evaluation. It is open until midnight March 13. Your comments and constructive criticisms are very crucial and will be used to improve future courses.

 

21. Mar 7, 2016

• Homework 6 problems have been posted -- there are mandatory and optional problems. You are encouraged to do both.
• There will be shortly a study guide document available for the final exam. Please come back and check out the website soon.
• For the final exam, you won't need any calculator. But if you wish to bring one, only a scientific calculator is allowed, but not a graphical calculator.
• Please read the announcements under the Quizzes and Exam Schedules tab.

 

22. Mar 9, 2016

• A list of things to know for the final exam (or a study guide) has been posted for both AMS 20 and AMS 20A. Please read carefully the instructions of the exam on the first page.
• The Monday office hour (1:00 pm -- 2:30 pm, Mar 14, 2016) will be available.

 

23. Mar 11, 2016

• Well done everyone, and I hope you have enjoyed your quarter with learning ODEs. I am holding my office hour on Monday the 14th, so please come by if you have any questions.