MAT 102, Spring 2008

Welcome to MAT 102!

• Instructor: Alfonso Sorrentino
• Email: asorrent @ math dot princeton dot edu

Grader's information:

• Grader: Po Lam Yung
• Email: pyung @ math dot princeton dot edu
• Office: Fine 504
• Office hours: Thursdays 2:30pm-3:30pm

I will run the review sessions that are held weekly on Wednesdays, 7-9pm, at Fine 110. We will review the important concepts covered in class and discuss some of the (usually more difficult) homework problems. You are encouraged to work on the homework problems beforehand, because that will help you understand the discussion a lot better. My job is to help you learn, and I will be putting in a lot of effort into that, so don't hesistate to ask any question, either in the review sessions or by coming to my office hours.

• Course website on Blackboard. You may find homework problems, grades, announcements there.
• Hints for HW 3 HW 6 HW 8.
• The hints for homework 8 is to be used with tutorials 7 and 36 of the following website: Read tutorial 7 if you want to recall how you factorize a polynomial, and read tutorial 36 if you want to remember how you carry out a long division of polynomials.
• Feedback on HW 1 HW 3 HW 4.
• Handout 1. Three short exercises in optimization. If you know how to solve them all, you should have a pretty good understanding of optimization problems.
• Handout 2. Little tricks that helps you integrate functions. Try to study this carefully, and think through them all. They represent one of the most important parts of the course.
• Handout 3. A list of all the basic forms of integrals that we know up to Section 8.2 of the book. Pay special attention to Sections 3, 4 and 5 there.
• Handout 4. Continuation of Handout 3. A list of all the basic forms of integrals in Sections 8.3 to 8.5 of the book. To be used with hints for HW 8 above.
• Review for the final. Contains a list of important concepts covered in the course, and some practice exercises. Solutions available here.

Some other interesting links:

• An interesting excerpt from Math doesn't suck by mathematician and actress Danica McKellar.

• Common errors in mathematics by Eric Schechter.

I have also written some tips on how to do well in this class. Enjoy!

• One last gift for the class: A poor man's defense about mathematics. Thank you all for participating in this class, and I hope you will remember some of the good moments you may have had - like the little joy you experienced when you discovered how to understand a problem, or when you came to understand a certain relation between two seemingly different concepts. It's a truly amazing achievement that you have made.