MATH1920 Spring 2023

The official homepage of the course is on Canvas. In the event of discrepancies between this page and the Canvas page, the Canvas version shall prevail.

Useful Contacts

• Instructors
  • Dr Kelly Delp (kd288)
  • Dr Balazs Elek (be94)
• Head TA
  • Chunyin Siu (cs2323)
• TAs
  • Mark Dalthorp (md944)
  • Zonghao Zou (zz474)
  • Diego Balam Sanchez Espinosa (ds973)
  • Chaitanya Tappu (ct596)
  • Harry Fluck (hpf5)
  • Zhen Zhang (zz628)
  • Emir Eray Karabiyik (ek693)
  • Gabe Roland Udell (gru5)
  • Lewis Campbell (lfc57)

SDS Information

Students with Disabilities: Your access in this course is very important to me. In order to have adequate time to arrange your approved accommodation, you must request your accommodation letter no later than February 8. If you become registered with SDS after February 8, you must request your accommodation letter at least 7 days prior to the date of your exam.

Once SDS approves your accommodation letter, it will be emailed to both you and me.

For students with testing accommodations, this course is participating in the SDS Alternative Testing Program for the Spring 2023 semester. If you have an approved testing accommodation, you must request it for this course and complete an Exam Request Form for each exam in this course via the SDS student portal by February 8th. Failure to do so may result in the inability to use your accommodation. For specific instructions for the form, Please refer to the following document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nSZmHJIHD_4Kwj-UjYSOFw3wKDQyzZW6/edit

Additionally, be aware of the following:

• Scheduling for accommodated exams: Evening prelim exams will begin at 6:30 p.m, which is one hour earlier than the regular exam for other students.
• All exam logistics will be communicated to you from SDS (look out for emails from sds@accessiblelearning.mail.cornell.edu). Please note that confirmation about the exact time and room location for your accommodated exam will be communicated to you closer to the exam date (no later than 48 hours prior). Please do not contact me with questions about exam logistics, as I will not be able to answer them. All details are being managed by SDS; therefore, questions should be sent to sds-testing@cornell.edu.
• Coordination of conflict exams will be handled by the Math 1920 course staff. The SDS Alternative Testing Program will not be involved in the logistics for any conflict exams. If you have a conflict (e.g. another centrally scheduled prelim at the same time, or are a student-athlete traveling for an official Cornell atheletic event , you should contact Chunyin Siu (cs2323).
• If you experience illness or emergency on the day of a prelim that prevents you from taking the prelim, follow the course policies, and notify the Math 1920 head TA Chunyin Siu (cs2323). The SDS Alternative Testing Program will not be involved in the logistics for missed exams. If you miss your scheduled accommodated exam, you should notify your instructor, not SDS.
• For students with other academic accommodations (not testing-related), please follow up with the head TA Chunyin Siu (cs2323) to discuss the necessary logistics of your accommodation(s).

Assignments

See Prof Inna Zakharevich’s homework guide.

• TE1 Due on Feb 2, 23
  • 13.1: 47, 56, 57, 68
  • 13.2: 50, 61, 67, 70
  • 13.3: 47, 75, 77, 87, 90
  • 13.4: 32, 43, 49
  • The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics. – Paul Halmos
• TE2 due on Feb 9
  • 13.5: 21, 29, 55, 67, 71, 72
  • 13.6: 27, 28
  • 13.7: 21, 28, 53, 61, 67
  • 14.1: 12, 29, 31, 35, 36, 37
  • If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. – Anonymous
• TE3 due on Feb 16
  • 14.2: 14, 29, 30, 33, 43, 55, 58, 59
  • 14.3: 5, 17, 21, 25, 31
  • 15.1: 8, 17, 31, 40, 46
  • On graphs: Graphs are stupid, […] that’s kind of the point. A graph is not an end product. It’s more like a map – a simplified picture of something big and complex, a schematic diagram that shows important features and omits distracting details. – Ben Orlin
• TE4 due on Feb 23
  • 15.2: 14, 45
  • 15.3: 9, 52, 69, 72
  • 15.4: 7, 13, 25, 37
  • Don’t just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? – Paul Halmos
• TE5 due on Mar 2
  • 15.5: 2, 23, 29, 37, 43, 50, 55, 57
  • 15.6: 23, 25, 35, 40, 43
  • If you don’t know, ask. You will be a fool for the moment, but a wise man or the rest of your life. – Seneca the Younger
• TE6 due on Mar 16
  • 15.7: 11, 24, 39, 49, 50
  • 15.8: 16, 20, 21, 25
  • On focus: Take the printout of the homework problems and some scratch paper to a table (with no computer) at the library. Turn off your phone. – Inna Zakharevich
• TE7 due on Mar 23
  • 16.1: 3, 29, 41, 45, 49
  • 16.2: 8, 31, 34, 47, 61
  • 16.3: 19, 20, 24, 27, 28, 33
  • On breaks: For a fortnight I had been attempting to prove [a proposition]. I was at that time very ignorant. Every day I sat down at my table and spent an hour or two trying a great number of combinations, and I arrived at no result. One night I took some black coffee, contrary to my custom, and was unable to sleep. A host of ideas kept surging in my head. […] When morning came, I had disproven [the said proposition]. – Henry Poincare
• TE8 due on Mar 30
  • 16.4: 5, 9, 21, 29, 42, 43, 45
  • 16.5: 9, 29, 54, 56
  • 17.1: 25, 33, 52, 53
  • On drilling: Mathematics is a way of thinking about problems and issues in the world. Get the thinking right and the skills come largely for free. – Keith Devlin
• TE9 due on Apr 13
  • 17.2: 21, 31, 41, 55, 62
  • 17.3: 13, 17, 19, 25, 27, 34
  • An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field. – Niels Bohr
• TE10 due on Apr 27
  • 17.4: 6, 8, 11, 21, 27, 37*, 41
  • 17.5: 3, 11, 20, 23, 25, 29
  • *For 17.4.37, feel free to use wolfram alpha or some such to evaluate the integral.
  • The root of education is bitter but the fruit is sweet. – Aristotle (V.1.18 in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers)
• TE11 due on May 4
  • 18.1: 7, 15, 17, 28, 38
  • 18.2: 6, 17, 19, 27, 29, 30
  • Sleep to remember; remember to sleep. Your memory, reasoning, and problem-solving all improve with sleep. – Cornell Health
• TE12 (will not be collected)
  • 18.3: 7, 18, 23, 24, 25, 29, 37
  • What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. – Friedrich Nietzsche