Math 171, Section 501, Calculus, Fall 2007
Harold P.
Boas
What's new
- Tuesday, December 11
- The final exam was given, and solutions are available.
- Tuesday, December 4
- On this final day of classes, I gave a preview of what Calculus II and Calculus III are about.
- Monday, December 3
- We reviewed some topics from Chapters 1 and 2 in preparation for the final examination to be given on Tuesday, December 11 from 3:30pm to 5:30pm.
- Friday, November 30
- By way of review, we compiled a list of important topics from Chapters 1-6. Also we worked on some additional exercises on the method of substitution for evaluating integrals.
- Thursday, November 29
- The graded exams were returned. The median score was 82, and there were two scores over 100. Good job!
We worked on some exercises from section 6.5 for a quiz grade.
- Wednesday, November 28
- The third exam was given, and solutions are available.
- Monday, November 26
- We reviewed for the exam to be given on Wednesday by working on exercises from page 416 in the textbook.
- Monday, November 19
- We discussed the second half of the fundamental theorem of calculus and worked some examples. The thirteenth quiz was given, and solutions are available.
- Friday, November 16
- We discussed the fundamental theorem of calculus and looked at some exercises from section 6.4. The assignment is to start reviewing for the third exam, which is coming up after Thanksgiving on Wednesday 28 November; there will be a review quiz on sections 4.6 and 4.8 next class.
- Thursday, November 15
- We worked on some exercises on Riemann sums and took the twelfth quiz, for which solutions are available.
- Wednesday, November 14
- We discussed Riemann sums and looked at examples.
- Monday, November 12
- We discussed the computation of area by the method of exhaustion. In particular, we computed the area under a parabola from first principles.
- Friday, November 9
- We discussed summation notation and some special sums (section 6.1).
- Thursday, November 8
- We worked on some exercises from the Review section for Chapter 5, and the eleventh quiz was given. Solutions are available.
- Wednesday, November 7
- We discussed antiderivatives and worked on exercises from section 5.7 in the textbook.
- Monday, November 5
- We worked on exercises from section 5.5 that apply calculus to solve extremal problems.
- Friday, November 2
- I posted solutions to the tenth quiz. In class, we worked on some exercises from section 5.4 about graphing.
- Thursday, November 1
- We worked on some exercises on l'Hospital's rule, graphing, and extreme-value problems, and the tenth quiz was given.
- Wednesday, October 31
- We discussed the extreme-value theorem, Rolle's theorem, the mean-value theorem, and some examples of their interpretation.
- Monday, October 29
- We discussed local and global extrema, critical points, inflection points, and concavity of graphs.
- Friday, October 26
- The median score on the second exam was 83, and there were two scores over 100. Good job!
In class we worked on l'Hospital's rule for indeterminate forms (section 4.8). For the time being, we are skipping section 4.7.
- Thursday, October 25
- We discussed inverse trigonometric functions (section 4.6). The quiz is a take-home assignment due at the start of class tomorrow: exercises 18, 22, 38, 54, and 66 on pages 281-282 in section 4.6.
Solutions to the second exam are available.
- Wednesday, October 24
- The second exam was given.
- Monday, October 22
- We reviewed for Exam 2 to be given on Wednesday, we looked at an exercise on exponential growth from section 4.5, and we worked on the true/false exercises in the Review section at the end of Chapter 4.
- Friday, October 19
- We talked about the notion of inverse function and worked on some exercises from section 4.2 of the textbook.
- Thursday, October 18
- We worked on a variety of exercises, and the eighth quiz was given. Solutions are available.
- Wednesday, October 17
- We discussed logarithm functions, their derivatives, and the method of logarithmic differentiation (section 4.4).
- Monday, October 15
- We discussed exponential functions and their derivatives (section 4.1).
- Friday, October 12
- We discussed Newton's method for approximating solutions of equations (section 3.12), and we worked on the true/false questions in the Review section for Chapter 3.
- Thursday, October 11
- We worked on exercises 81, 91, and 95 on page 236 in the Review section for Chapter 3. The seventh quiz was given, and solutions are available.
- Wednesday, October 10
- We discussed linear approximations of differentiable functions (section 3.11).
- Monday, October 8
- I posted solutions to the sixth quiz. In class, we worked on exercises about related rates from section 3.10.
- Friday, October 5
- I was speaking at a meeting of the American Mathematical Society at DePaul University in Chicago, so our class did not meet.
- Thursday, October 4
- Jeff Towles gave the sixth quiz.
- Wednesday, October 3
- We looked at some problems involving derivatives of vector functions and their graphical interpretation (sections 3.7 and 3.9 in the textbook). On Thursday, our assistant Jeff Towles will meet class and give the quiz. On Friday 5 October, I will be speaking at a conference in Chicago, and our class will not meet.
- Monday, October 1
- We continued discussing implicit differentiation, and we also looked at some exercises on higher derivatives from section 3.8. We will take up section 3.7 next time. I will be speaking in Chicago on Friday, October 5, so our class will not meet that day.
- Friday, September 28
- The median score on the first exam was 81, and there were four scores over 100. Congratulations!
In class, we worked on exercises from section 3.6 on implicit differentiation.
- Thursday, September 27
- We worked in groups on exercises from section 3.5 (chain rule) for a quiz grade.
- Wednesday, September 26
- The first exam was given, and solutions are available.
- Monday, September 24
- After some discussion about what to expect on the examination Wednesday, we worked on exercises from section 3.4 on limits and derivatives of trigonometric functions.
- Friday, September 21
- We practiced computing derivatives by hand using the power rule, product rule, and quotient rule. The assignment is to read section 3.3 in the textbook.
- Thursday, September 20
- We worked on exercises about the standard rules for computing derivatives (power rule, product rule, quotient rule). We took the fourth quiz, and solutions are available.
- Wednesday, September 19
- We worked on some of the exercises from section 3.1 about interpreting the definition of the derivative and the meaning of the derivative.
- Monday, September 17
- We finally defined the derivative officially, and we talked about its interpretation as a slope or a velocity or more generally as a rate of change of some physical quantity. We looked at the application of finding a tangent line to a curve or, equivalently, finding a tangent vector to a curve given in parametric form.
- Friday, September 14
- Our undergraduate teaching assistant, Jeff Towles, will hold a help session for our class on Tuesday evenings, 7:15-9:15pm, in Blocker
156 105. In class today, we worked on the true/false review exercises 1-12 on page 146 at the end of Chapter 2.
- Thursday, September 13
- We worked on problems about limits, asymptotes, and continuous functions. We took the third quiz, and solutions are available.
- Wednesday, September 12
- We discussed the concept of a continuous function, examples of different types of discontinuities, and the intermediate value theorem.
- Monday, September 10
- We discussed limits at infinity and horizontal asymptotes (section 2.6). On Wednesday, we will cover section 2.5 on continuous functions.
- Friday, September 7
- We worked on computing limits both by hand and by using Maple. On Monday, we will cover section 2.6.
- Thursday, September 6
- We worked on some problems about vector and parametric equations of lines from the Review section for Chapter 1 on page 71 and on some problems about proving limits from section 2.4 on page 111. We took the second quiz, and solutions are available.
- Wednesday, September 5
- We discussed the precise definition of limit using the traditional ε and δ notation.
- Monday, September 3
- We discussed the notions of limits, one-sided limits, and infinite limits. Wednesday we will cover section 2.4, which is the precise definition of the limit concept.
- Friday, August 31
- We worked in the computer lab on using Maple to show how graphs of parametric curves change when the parameters are varied. Before class on Monday, you should read sections 2.1 and 2.2 in the textbook.
- Thursday, August 30
- We went over the notions of scalar projection and vector projection, and we took the first quiz. There are solutions available. You should read section 1.3 before class tomorrow, which will meet in Blocker 130.
- Wednesday, August 29
- We discussed the dot product of vectors, orthogonality, and (briefly) the projection of one vector onto another. Be prepared for a quiz over sections 1.1 and 1.2 tomorrow.
- Monday, August 27
- At our first class meeting, one-third of us introduced ourselves. Then we discussed vectors (section 1.1 in the textbook).
- Sunday, August 26
- This site went live today. The
first-day handout is available online.
These pages are copyright © 2007 by Harold P. Boas. All rights
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