Linear Algebra MAT26500, Fall 2012
Sections 41, 52 (CRN 22069, 22082)

Important course information: (If you are enrolled in my section I expect you to look at all of this information in detail at the beginning of the semester and to consult it as necessay).
You can find the syllabus by following the next link. I expect you to read this in its entirety during the first week of class.
Main course page , where you can find info about the assignments and projects. I fully expect you read the ground rules and the assignment sheet on the first day of classes.
For students with disabilities. If you may be entitled extra time to write midterms or quizzes please see the information on this sheet.

Final exam You can find the date/time/location here. The final exam covers everything from day 1. It will be a multiple choice exam.

Past exams, here

you can also find some practice problems here
Assignments: Nearly all assignments will be done online using webassign. There will be a few problems you will need to complete and submit on paper, the details of which you can also find at webassign. For any hand-in assignments, make sure your assignment can be easily read and that pages are stapled. It is your responsibility to present your work clearly. The grader will not give credit to illegible assignments. You must also provide clear explanations; you might not receive full credit - even if you provide the correct answer - if the process by which you arrived at this answer is unclear.

Some useful sources:
Topics covered
Chapter 1 - Linear equations, the method of row reduction, matrices. section notes 1.1 , 1.2 , 1.3 , 1.4 , 1.5
Some extra remarks: Chapter 2 - . Properties of matrices and matrix algebra. Lectures for 2.1 and 2.2 , Lectures for 2.3 ,
Chapter 3 - Determinants : Lecture for 3.1 , Lecture for 3.2 , Lecture for 3.3 , Lecture for 3.4 and 3.5
Chapter 4 - Abstract vector spaces , lecture notes 4.2 , 4.3 for sections 4.4-4.6 , some brief comments about basic set theory .
Chapter 5 - The inner product
Notes for 5.1 on the dot product in R2,R3, notes for 5.3 (inner product spaces , notes for 5.4 (Gram-Schmidt) , and notes for 5.5 and 5.6 (orthogonal projections, least squares). Here are some Matlab files to play with least squares: LS1.m , LS2.m , LS2b.m , LS3.m LS3.m , LS3.m , LS3c..m (which sets things up a little more generally -- we need the function files func1.m , func2.m , func3.m , funcout.m , pythagoras (inspired by Michael Lugo's blog post), and temp regression as well)
Chapter 6 - Linear Transformations (we will only look at 6.1, unfortunately).
Chapter 7 - Spectral theory (a fancy name for the notions of eigenvalue and eigenvectors)
Chapter 8 - Application of spectral theory to ordinary differential equations.
Here is a link to a colleague's "strategies" for linear algebra problems. You might find it to be a useful summary of the techniques we learn in this class.
Bonus problems.
Important Dates:
First midterm: Wednesday 22 February in class. See above for samples/practice problems.
version A and version B and some rough stats
Second midterm : Wednesday 4 April at in class. See above for samples/practice problems. stats
Some things: Sample midterms and practice problems (you should also look at past exams, which you can find here).
First lecture (data) slideshow version
Some matlab files (I made these for octave so some adjustments might be necessary.) I wrote them to familiarize myself with matlab since I rarely use it, but they demonstrate some things you can do with just a little linear algebra... they are horribly inefficient and useless, but supped-up versions of some of these algorithms may be useful for certain applications.

here