Prof. Nyikos's Office: LeConte 406. Phone: 7-5134
Email: nyikos @ math.sc.edu
Special Office Hours for Exam Week: Monday, Dec. 9, 10:30 - 1:00 and 2:00- 4:00;
Tuesday, 1:00 - 4:00; Wednesday as usual [see below]; Thursday, 11:00 - 1: 00 and 2:00 - 3:30.
The usual MW office hours have been 11:00 - 1:00 and 2:00 - 3:30, while the usual TR hours have been
from 1:00 to 2:00 except when there were
no classes, as on Labor Day and closures due to weather. There will be other exceptions from
time to time, mostly for seminars; these will be announced in advance and posted on my
office door whenever possible.
Other times by appointment. You are also free to drop by any time I am in, but try to avoid the last half
hour before my classes. My other class has its final exam 9am -11:30am Tuesday Dec. 10.
The first test in this course was on Thursday, September 26. It covered Sections 12.1 through 12.5
and Sections 13.1, 13.2, and 13.3.
The second test in this course was on Thursday, October 31. It covered Sections 14.1, 14.3, 14.5,
14.6 and 16.1.
The third test was on Thursday, November 21. It covered Sections 14.7 and 15.1 through 15.4.
The first quiz in this course was on Thursday, September 5, on Sections 12.1, 12.2, and 12.3.
The second quiz was on Thursday, September 19, on Sections 12.4 and 12.5
The third quiz was on Tuesday, October 8. It covered Section 16.1.
The fourth quiz was on Tuesday, October 22. It covered Section 14.3.
The fifth quiz was on Thursday, November 7. It covered Section 15.1
The sixth quiz was on Thursday, November 14. It covered Secions 15.2 and 15.3.
The seventh quiz was on Tuesday, November 24. It was on spherical coordinates, Section 15.7,
on a problem very similar to the ones
covered earlier in the class with the help of a handout.
It was
be open book and open notes and handouts; in fact, the only restriction is not to copy someone else's
work (which qualifies as cheating and involves penalties).
The textbook for this course is Thomas's Calculus: Early Transcendentals by Thomas, Weir, and Hass, 13th edition. Contrary to what may be on the bookstore webpage for this course, you do not need any website access package for my section.
There is a multivariable version containing only those parts of the text which are needed for this course. I haven't seen them in the Barnes and Noble bookstore, but they can be ordered online at e.g., Amazon.com
Caution. The university bookstore is selling a version of the textbook that is tailor-made for the University of South Carolina by omitting some sections that the calculus sequence here does not cover. The advantage is that the cost of buying the textbook is much less than if you buy online [except for used textbooks.] The downsides are:
In addition, sections 11.1, 11.2, 11.3 and 11.4 may be reviewed as needed. The course begins with 12.1, which is important for getting a feel for a three-dimensional coordinate system.
The most emphasis will be on Chapters 14 and 15. The material in Chapter 13 is covered more thoroughly in Math 550 and/or Math 551, while the Chapter 16 material is covered very thoroughly in Math 550.
My university e-mail sometimes gets put into spam files and is hard to find then. If you do not get an answer to an e-mail within a day, see me after class or in my office, or give me a phone call. From a campus phone you can use 7-5134; otherwise add 77 at the beginning.
I will be entering your grades on blackboard, and also sending emails from there.
On Monday, August 26 I sent one; I hope everyone registered for this course received it.
There will be other uses of blackboard from time to time.
Learning Outcomes: Students will master concepts and
solve problems based upon the topics covered in the course, including
the following: vectors and basic operations on them, including dot and cross
products; vector-valued functions and their integration and differentiation;
functions of several variables and their maximization, differentiation and integration;
vector fields;
line and path integrals.
A student who successfully completes this course should be able to continue developing
as an independent learner and problem solver, with the ability to approach problems from a conceptual
viewpoint, to utilize more than one idea in a single problem, and to apply appropriate
calculus skills to problems in context.
There will be 3 tests in the course. Each test is worth 100 points. Grades for quizzes will be weighted at the end of the semester on a scale of 0 to 100. The final exam is two and a half hours long and is worth 200 points.
Your letter grade for the course will be based on the above scores, but class attendance will count in borderline cases.
Also, university regulations say that absences, whether excused or unexcused, in excess of 10% are considered excessive and faculty may choose to assess a penalty for them. Poor attendance in this course could pull your grade down as far as one notch: from an A to a B+, from a B+ to a B, etc. This is not as severe as some courses, like English 101 where, for some sections, 25% absences incur an automatic grade of F.
Students who leave class early or come late without excuse run the risk of being counted as absent.
The final exam is on Thursday, December 12, at 4:00 pm. Only major, documented excuses for missing will be accepted. With so many students in the class, the University cannot accommodate any but the most compelling reasons. If you know in advance that you will miss it, let me know as soon as possible, in writing, giving details.
Information on all final exam times can be found outside of "Self Service Carolina" here.
Only simple calculators (available for $20 or less) are needed for this course, and they will be needed only a small fraction of the time, outside of class. Neither the quizzes, nor the hour tests, nor the final exam will require their use, although they may save some time on a few problems. Programmable calculators are not permitted for quizzes, hour tests, or the final exam.
Further information on policies and grading can be found by clicking here.
Practice problems, not to be handed in:
Section 12.1: 1,3, 5, 25, 29, 41, 47, 51, 55, 57. All but the last three should take very little time.
Section 12.2: 5, 7, 17, 21, 25, 33, 39. Physics and engineering students might also try their hand at 45 and 47, but this kind of problem will not appear on a test or quiz.
Section 12.3: 1, 5, 25, 29, 45.
Section 12.4: 3, 5, 15, 21, 39, 41. (optional: 25)
Section 12.5: 1, 3, 5, 9, 21, 23.
Section 13.1: 1, 9, 13, 15, 19, finish 23.
Section 13.2: 1, 3, 13, 15, finish 21.
Section 13.3: 1, 3, 5, 13.
Section 14.1: 13, 15, and 31 through 36.
Section 14.3: 1, 7, 9, 23, 31, 35, 43, 51, 55.
Section 14.5: 3, 7, 11, 17, 19, 21.
Section 14.6: 1, 3, 9, 11.
Section 14.7: 1, 3, 15, 19.
Section 15.1: 1, 5, 9, 15, 17, 19, 21
Section 15.2: 1, 9, 11, 13, 19, 33, 43, 47
Section 15.3: 3, 5, 9, 13, 15.
Section 15.4: 1, 3, 9. 11. 21.
Section 16.1: odd 1 through 9, 19b, 21, 25.
Section 16.2: 1, 7b, 11a, 19, 21.