Instructor: Lechao Xiao
Email: xle (at) math(dot)upenn(dot)edu
Office: DRL 3N4C
Office Hours: Tuesday 3:30-4:30pm and by appointment
Lecture: TTh 1:30-3:00pm, DRL 3C4
Teaching assistant:Jacob Hansen, jhansen (at) sas.upenn.edu
Syllabus: here
Text: Introduction to Linear Algebra, by Gilbert Strang Fourth edition
Course Description: We plan to cover 1-8 in Strang's book. Chapters 1-7 form the foundation for understanding linear algebra. This includes: solving linear systems equations, vector spaces, orthogonality and Gram–Schmidt algorithm, determinants, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and linear transforms. Important applications from Chapter 8 will be sprinkled throughout the course.
Your grade for the course will be determined based on the following factors:.
Midterm Exams : 20% eachMidterm Exam 1: In class, Tuesday Feb 14th.
Midterm Exam 2: In class, Tueday March 21st.
Final Exam : April 25th
There will be around 8 homework assignments. Collaboration on homework assignments is encouraged, but any work you turn in must be your own. If you collaborate with other students, please write down their names. Some assignments will need to be sent to the grader electronically. Late homework will not be accepted but I will drop your lowest homework score.
Throughout this course, we will play around with MATLAB (or the open source alternative, Octave.) Many homework assignments will involve programming. Any code you turn in must be your own work; copying is strictly prohibited and is considered to be a serious cheating problem! If you have little or no prior programming experience, you must be willing to learn as you go. MATLAB is available in on-campus computer labs, see the link below \\https://www.seas.upenn.edu/cets/software/matlab/). You may wish to consider purchasing your own copy, or using the free program Octave. These two languages are identical and have similar functionality.