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Course Info
Math 23a is the rst half of a moderately rigorous course in linear algebra and multivariable calculus, designed for students who
are serious about mathematics and interested in being able to prove the theorems that they use but who are as much concerned
about the application of mathematics in elds like physics and economics as about pure mathematics for its own sake. Trying to
cover both theory and practice makes for a challenging course with a lot of material, but it is appropriate for the audience!
Course Assistants
Nicolas Campos ncampos@college.harvard.edu
Ju Hyun Lee juhyunlee@college.harvard.edu
Elaine Reichert reichertelaine@gmail.com
Emily Tiberi emilytiberi@college.harvard.edu
Sebastian Wagner-Carena swagnercarena@college.harvard.edu
Jennifer Hu jenniferhu@college.harvard.edu
Michael Lim hyunjaelim@college.harvard.edu
Ben Sorscher bsorscher@college.harvard.edu
Kenneth Wang kwang02@college.harvard.edu
Prerequisites
This course is designed for the student who received a grade of 5 on the Math BC Advanced Placement examination or an A or
A minus in Math 1b. Probably the most important prerequisite is the attitude that mathematics is fun and exciting. Extension
students should ordinarily have an A in Math E-16, and an additional math course would be a very good idea.
Prerequisites, cont.
Our assumption is that the typical Math 23a student knows only high-school algebra and single-variable calculus, is currently better
at formula-crunching than at doing proofs (may have no proof experience), and likes to see examples to accompany abstractions. If,
before coming to Harvard, you took courses in both linear algebra and multivariable calculus, Math 25 might be more appropriate.
We do not assume that Math 23 students have any prior experience in either of these areas beyond solving systems of linear
equations in high school algebra.
This year, for the second time, we will devote four weeks to single-variable real analysis. Real analysis is the study of real-valued
functions and their properties, such as continuity, and differentiability, as well as sequences, series, limits, and convergence. This
means that if you are an international student whose curriculum included calculus but not innite series OR if you had a calculus
course that touched only lightly on topics like series, limits, and continuity, you will be OK.
Mathematics beyond AP calculus is NOT a prerequisite! Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is misguided. In fact, since we will
be teaching sequences and series from scratch (but rigorously), you can perhaps get away with a weaker background in this area
than is required for Math 21.
Strange as it may seem, Part I of the math placement test that freshmen have taken is the most important. Students who do well in
Math 23 have almost all scored 26 or more out of 30 on this part.
Extension students who register for graduate credit are required to learn and use the scripting language R. This option is also
available to everyone else in the course. You need to be only an experienced software user, not a programmer.
Course Meetings
The course ordinarily meets in Science Center A. To avoid overcrowding, the first two lectures have been moved to
Science Center C.
Lectures run from 2:35 to 4:00. They provide complete coverage of the weeks material, occasionally illustrated by examples done
in the R scripting language.
Exams
Logistics
There will be two quizzes and one nal exam. Quizzes run from 6 to 9 PM, but you can arrive any time before 7 PM, since 120
minutes should be enough time for the quiz.
Quiz 1:
Quiz 2:
Final Exam:
KEEP THESE TIME SLOTS OPEN. Do not, for example, schedule a lab or section on Wednesday evenings. If you know that you
tend to work slowly, it would also be unwise to schedule another obligation that leaves only part of that time available to you!
If you have an unexpected time conict for one of the quizzes, contact Kate as soon as you know about it, and special arrangements
can be made. Distance students will take their quizzes near their home but on the same dates.
Students who have exam accommodations, properly documented by a letter from the Accessible Education Ofce, may need to take
their quizzes in a separate location. Please provide the AEO letters as early in the term as you can, since we may need to reserve
one or more extra rooms.
Textbooks
Vector Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential Forms, Hubbard and Hubbard, fourth edition, Matrix Editions, 2009. Try to get
the second printing, which includes a few signicant changes to chapters 4 and 6.
This book is in stock at the Coop, or you can order it for $84 plus $10 for priority shipping from the publishers Web site at
http://matrixeditions.com/UnifiedApproach4th.html.
We will cover Chapters 1-3 this term, Chapters 4-6 in Math 23b; so this one textbook will last for the entire year.
Ross, Elementary Analysis: The Theory of Calculus, 2nd Edition, 2013.
This will be the primary text for the module on single-variable real analysis. It is available electronically through the Harvard library
system (use HOLLIS and search for the author and title). If you like to own bound volumes, used copies can be found on amazon.com
for as little as $25, but be sure to get the correct edition!
Lawvere, Conceptual mathematics: a rst introduction to categories, 2nd Edition, 2009.
We will only be using the rst chapter, and the book is available for free download through the Harvard library system.
Homework
Homework (typically 8 problems) will be assigned weekly. The assignment will be included in the same online document as the
lecture notes and section problems.
Assignments are due on WEDNESDAYS by 10:00 AM. There will be a locked box on the second oor, near Room 209, with your
late section instructors name. At 10 AM Kate will place a sheet of colored paper in each box, and anything above that paper will
be late! Please include your name, the assignment number, and your CAs name on your assignment.
Each weeks assignment will include a couple of optional problems whose solutions require R scripts. These scripts should be uploaded electronically to the dropbox on the Web site for that week. Please include your name as a comment in the script and also
in the le name.
The course assistant who leads your late section will return your corrected homework to you at the section after the due date. If
you are not receiving graded homework on schedule, send an email to penner@math.harvard.edu and the problem will be dealt
with.
Homework that is handed in after 10AM on the Wednesday when it is due will not be graded. If it arrives before the end of Reading
Period and looks fairly complete, you will get a grade of 50% for it.
Honor Code
If you are a freshman, you will already be familiar with the new Harvard College Honor code, which states:
Members of the Harvard College community commit themselves to producing academic work of integrity that is, work that
adheres to the scholarly and intellectual standards of accurate attribution of sources, appropriate collection and use of data, and
transparent acknowledgement of the contribution of others to their ideas, discoveries, interpretations, and conclusions. Cheating
on exams or problem sets, plagiarizing or misrepresenting the ideas or language of someone else as ones own, falsifying data, or
any other instance of academic dishonesty violates the standards of our community, as well as the standards of the wider world of
learning and affairs.
On the nal exam, everyone will be asked to afrm their awareness of the Honor Code. Here is the current statement of the policy:
At seated nal exams, all students will be asked to read and sign a statement afrming their awareness of the Honor Code. Faculty
will be provided with attendance slips that include the afrmation in their exam packets (I afrm my awareness of the standards
of the Harvard College Honor Code.). Faculty will be asked to distribute these slips with the exams and will ask students to sign
the afrmation before completing the exam. Students will turn in the slips with their exam. Faculty may also have the option of
including the afrmation on the printed exam and asking students to sign the afrmation directly there. Faculty may also ask
students to hand write the afrmation and sign it directly on their blue book.
Extension students and students cross-registered from the Kennedy School, the School of Public Health, and other graduate
schools are members of the Harvard College community while participating in Math 23a/E-23a and are expected to conform
to the standards of the Honor Code.
For purposes of quizzes and exams, this mostly means no cheating, even if you are taking a quiz as a distance learner. The issues
of citing sources and acknowledging the contributions of others are important for homework and for graduate term projects in R.
However, on exams this issue should not arise, since everything presented in lectures, videos, R scripts, the textbook, notes, etc. is
deemed common knowledge, and common knowledge does not have to be cited.
Software
LaTeX
Pronounced LAY-tek, this is the technology that is used to create all the course handouts. Once you learn how to use it, you can
create professional-looking mathematics on your own computer. The editor that is built into the Canvas course Web site is based
on LaTeX.
One of the course requirements is to upload four proofs to the course Web site in a medium of your choice. One option is to use
LaTeX. Alternatively, you can use the Canvas le editor (LaTeX based), or you can make a YouTube video.
I learned LaTeX without a book or manual by just taking someone elses les, ripping out all the content, and inserting my own, and
so can you. You will need to download freeware MiKTeX version 2.9 (see http://www.miktex.org), which includes an integrated
editor named TeXworks.
From http://tug.org/mactex/ you can download a similar package for the Mac OS X.
When in TeXworks, use the Typeset/pdfLaTeX menu item button to create a .pdf le. To learn how to create fractions, sums,
vectors, etc., just nd an example in the lecture outlines and copy what I did. All the LaTeX source for lecture outlines, assignments,
and practice quizzes is on the Web site, so you can nd working models for anything that you need to do.
The course documents contain examples of diagrams created using TikZ, LaTeXs built-in graphics editor. It is also easy to include
.jpg or .png les in LaTeX. Students have found numerous other solutions to the problem of creating graphics, so just experiment.
Google search offers up a treasure trove of LaTeX advice.
LaTeX, cont.
If you create a .pdf le for your homework, please ask your CA if they prefer a digital or hard copy. By default, undergraduates and
local Extension students may submit the assignment electronically only if you are out of town on the due date. Individual section
instructors may adopt a more liberal policy about allowing electronic submission. If submitting electronically, you may NOT submit
.tex les! Only .pdfs are acceptable.
R and R Studio
This is required only for Extension students who register for graduate credit, but it is an option for everyone. Consider learning R
if you
are interested in computer science and want practice in using software to do things that are more mathematical than can be
dealt with in CS 50 or 51.
are thinking of taking a statistics course, which is likely to use R.
are hoping to get an interesting summer job or summer internship that uses mathematics or deals with lots of data.
want to be able to work with large data les in research projects in any eld (life sciences, economics and nance, government,
etc.)
R is free, open-source software. Instructions for download and installation are on the Web site. If interested, you will have the
chance to use R at the rst section on Thursday, September 10 or Friday, September 11; so install it right away, preferably on a
laptop computer that you can bring to section.
On the course website are a set of R scripts, with accompanying YouTube videos, that explain how to do almost every topic in the
course by using R. These scripts are optional for undergraduates, but they will enhance your understanding both of mathematics
and of R.
Use of R
You can earn R bonus points in three ways:
By being a member of a group that uploads solutions to section problems that require creation of R scripts. These will be
available most, but not all, weeks. (about 10 points)
By submitting R scripts that solve the optional R homework problems (again available most, but not all, weeks). (about 20
points)
By doing a term project in R. (about 20 points)
To do the graduate credit grade calculation, we will add in your R bonus points to the numerator of your score. To the denominator, we will add in 95% of your bonus points or 50% of the possible bonus points, whichever is greater. Earning a lot of R points
is essential if you are registered for graduate credit. Otherwise,earning more than half the bonus points is certain to raise your
percentage score a bit, and it can make a big difference if you have a bad day on a quiz or on the nal exam.
Grades
Your course grade will be determined as follows:
problem sets, 50 points. Your worst score will be converted to a perfect score.
presenting and listening to proofs, 26 points.
uploading proofs to the Web site, 4 points.
participation in the early sections, based on attendance, preparation, contributions to problem solving, and posting solutions
to the Web site, 10 points.
two quizzes, 40 points each.
nal exam, slightly more than 60 points.
OPTIONAL: R bonus points, about 50 points in numerator, 25-45 points in denominator.
For graduate students, only a graduate percentage score, using the R bonus points, will be calculated. For everyone else, we will
also calculate an undergraduate percentage score, ignoring the R bonus points, and we will use the higher of the two percentage
scores.
Grades, cont.
The grading scheme is as follows:
Points Grade
94.0%
A
88.0%
A80.0%
B+
75.0%
B
69.0%
B63.0%
C+
57.0%
C
51.0%
CThere is no curve in this course! You cannot do worse because your classmates do better.
Week-by-week Schedule
Month
Fortnight 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Fortnight 12
Half-week 13
Date
September 3-11
September15-18
September 22-25
Sept. 29 - Oct. 2
October 6-9
October 7
October 13-16
October 20-23
October 27-30
November 3-6
November 4
November 10-13
November 17-20
Nov. 24-Dec. 3
November 26
December 8
December 12
Topic
Fields, vectors and matrices
Dot and cross products; Euclidean geometry of Rn
Row reduction, independence, basis
Eigenvectors and eigenvalues
Number systems and sequences
QUIZ 1 on weeks 1-4
Series, convergence tests, power series
Limits and continuity of functions
Derivatives, inverse functions, Taylor series
Topology, sequences in Rn , linear differential equations
QUIZ 2 on weeks 5-8
Limits and continuity in Rn ; partial and directional derivatives
Differentiability, Newtons method, inverse functions
Manifolds, critical points, Lagrange multipliers
Thansksgiving
Calculus on parametrized curves; div, grad, and curl
FINAL EXAM on weeks 9-12
This schedule covers all the math that is needed for Physics 15a, 16, and 15b with the sole exception of surface integrals, which will
be done in the spring. The real analysis in Math 23a alone will be sufcient for most PhD programs in economics, though the most
prestigious programs will want to see Math 23b also. All the mathematics that is used in Economics 1011a will be covered by the
end of the term. The coverage of proofs is complete enough to permit prospective Computer Science concentrators to skip CS 20.
Abstract vector spaces and multiple integration, topics of great importance to prospective math concentrators, have all been moved
to Math 23b.
Miscellany
Switching Courses - College students only
While transfers among Math 21a, 23a, 25a, and 55a are routine, it is important to note that Math 21a focuses on multivariable
calculus, while Math 23a and 25a focus on linear algebra. Math 21b focuses on linear algebra, while Math 23b and 25b focus on
multivariable calculus. Math 21a and b are given every semester, while Math 23a and 25a are fall only with 23b and 25b given spring
only. Ordinarily there is a small fee if you drop a course after the third Monday of the term, but this is waived in the case of math
courses. However, the fth Monday, October 5, is a rm deadline after which you cannot change courses! If you are considering
courses, please contact Paul or Kate to be advised correctly!
YouTube videos
These were made as part of a rather unsuccessful pedagogical experiment last year. They are quite good, but you will need some
extra time to watch them.
The Lecture Preview Videos were made by Kate. They cover the so-called Executive Summaries in the weekly course materials, which go over all the course materials, but without proofs or detailed examples.
If you watch these videos (it takes about an hour per week) you will be very well prepared for lecture, and even the most
difcult material will make sense on a rst hearing.
Last years experiment was unsuccessful because we assumed in lecture that everyone had watched these videos, when in
fact only half the class did so. Those who did not watch them complained, correctly, that the lectures skipped over basic
material in getting to proofs and examples. This years lectures will be self-contained, so the preview videos are not required
viewing.
The R script videos were made by Paul. They provide a line-by-line explanation of the R scripts that accompany each weeks
materials.
Last years experiment was unsuccessful because going over these scripts in class was not a good use of lecture time. If you
are doing the graduate option, these scripts are pretty much required viewing, although the scripts are so thoroughly commented that just working through them on your own is perhaps a viable alternative.
If you are doing just the undergraduate option, you can ignore the R scripts completely.
Math 23a/E-23a
Math E-23a
HOW-TO for DISTANCE STUDENTS
Lecture
Lecture videos will be recorded and posted to the course website within 24 hours of class.
Section
Early Section (attendance mandatory)
Early section, an opportunity to work with other students in small groups, actively solving problems is a MANDATORY class activity.
This will take place through Blackboard Collaborate, and class links for access will be posted to our course website. Students will
be evaluated on their attendance, participation, and their solutions posted to the course website.
Ofce Hours
Weekly ofce hours will be held online with the course staff. Ofce hours will begin the weekend of Saturday, Sept. 12, with a
precise schedule TBD. Ofce hours may take place via Blackboard Collaborate or Google Hangout, depending on functionality!
Quizzes
Quizzes will be administered on the same dates as listed in the in-person syllabus. A proctor is required. Both the proctor and
student will sign a statement, conrming that the exam was administered in keeping with the standards of the Colleges honor
code.
Final Exam
The nal exam is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 12 in the morning. Exams will be arranged through the Distance Education
Registrar and Exams Ofce.