MATH 445
Fall 2011

Professor  Ken Alexander                Phone:  213-740-3797

Office:  KAP 424E.  It is inside suite 424, SW corner of the building.  Normally the suite door is open but if it's locked, knock fairly loudly.

Email:  alexandr@usc.edu          Web Page:  http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~alexandr/ .  Links on this page will take you to course information and homework assignments.

Office hours:  Monday 2-3; Wednesday 11-12, 2-3; or by appointment.  Best to call or email at least 1-2 hours ahead, for an appointment outside office hours.  (No appointment necessary for office hours, of course.)

Teaching Assistant:  Adam Ericksen

Text:  Advanced Engineering Mathematics by E. Kreyszig, 10th edition.  There is custom edition for USC which omits some chapters we don’t need. 

Homework will be given approximately weekly.  On each assignment a few selected problems will be graded.  It is OK to help each other solve homework problems, but it's not OK to turn in essentially identical solutions--once you have discussed homework problems so that you understand better what to do, you should write the solutions on your own.  Homework will be accepted up to  2 lectures late, with a 20% penalty.  Not accepted more than 2 lectures late.  The deadline for both on-time and late homework is the end of the lecture hour (not the end of the day.)  Homework should be turned in either (i) in lecture, (ii) by sliding it under my office door, or (iii) by taking it to the Mathematics Department office where it can be time-stamped.  Do not place homework directly in my mailbox!  

Quizzes:  There will be two or three quizzes during the term, in discussion session, typically the week before an exam.  (Exact dates to be announced in lecture.)

Exams:  Two midterms plus final.  Tentative midterm dates are Wednesday September 28 and Wednesday November 2.  Final is Friday December 9, 11 am – 1 pm. The final is cumulative but with greater emphasis on material after the second midterm.  Locations to be announced.

     Update:  Midterm 1 is Wednesday Sept. 28 during lecture hour, in ZHS 352 (the building just south of the student union, on Trousdale.)  Closed book, no calculators.

Missed exams:  There will be no makeup exams.  In exceptional cases, with a written excuse, if you miss an exam I will base your grade on the exams you did take.

Grading:  Homework+quizzes 30%, midterms 20% each, final 30%. No fixed quotas of A’s, B’s etc.  The number of points needed for a particular grade is not fixed in advance--if  the exam turns out to be difficult and scores are low, then fewer points are needed for an A, for a B, etc.

Auditing:  If you want to just sit in on the class, you must register for an audit.

Material to be covered:  Most of Chapters 11-14 and 5; a little of Chapter 10, and occasional additional material not from the text.  See the approximate schedule below.

Schedule:  The following schedule is approximate and tentative.

10.7 - 10.8 (parts):  2 lectures, Vector calculus review
  

Chapter 11: 10 lectures,   Fourier Analysis
  

12.1 – 12.10: 12 lectures,   Partial Differential Equations
  

Chapter 5:   7 lectures,   Series solutions, special functions
  

13.1 - 13.5:   5 lectures,   Complex variables  
  

Midterms      2 lectures 

  

TOTAL   42 lectures

Everything in this syllabus is in principle tentative; if necessary it will be adjusted during the semester. 
 


Additional help:  There are TA's in the Math Center Mon. - Fri., 8 am - 6 pm.  Many, but not all, are qualified to help with 445, so ask around to find one who is.