Math 215: Linear Algebra

Contact Information

Syllabus: Here's a link to a pdf of the syllabus where you'll find critical information like meeting times, office hours, course policy, and grading procedures.
Text: Elementary Linear Algebra by Kenneth Kuttler, version 8/26/09, available for download via this link.
MatLab: You can download a free copy of the software at this link. You'll need to use your university NetID and password. Alternatively, you can use the software on campus at computer labs in the ILC.

The final meeting of the course on Tuesday, December 8th, will be in the math department, room 101. This is one of the computer labs on the first floor of the math building.
Solutions to the second midterm are available here.
Although any information covered in class could potentially appear on the second midterm, the focus will be on the material we covered from chapters 8 and 9 on the rank of a matrix and linear transformations. There will be at least one question on spectral theory, but it will not be the focus of the exam.
In class on Thursday I assigned chapter 7 for reading, not realizing that my print out of the text differed from the official version on the website. We will not be covering chapter 7 except for what we've already said about determinants, read chapter 8 instead.
Solutions to the first midterm are available here.
Tutoring for this class is available in Math East room 145, from 11-3pm Monday-Thursday and 11-1pm Friday. Most times have coverage that should be good for all courses, but some tutors will only be helping with 223, or with 223 and 215.
I contacted the campus site license staff and recieved this response regarding students being unable to install MatLab. If you still can't get it to install you should contact them (though also inform me please).
All course announcements will be posted here in addition to any other possible forums. Students should check the course webpage frequently.

Download free copies of both the course text (required) and MATLAB (optional but highly recommended). Read Chapters 2 and 3 except for 2.7-2.9. Do exercises 1-5 in section 2.6. Also, find the vector v associated to the arrow with head at Q = (7,6,-1) and tail at P = (0,-3,8), and then compute the length of v. What's the distance between P and Q? Do exercises 1, 2, 7, 12, 13, 19-22, 26, 27 in section 3.3. Solutions.
Read chapter 4. Do exercises 4, 6, 9, 12, 22, 27, 30, 32, 39, 48, 49 in section 4.2. Solutions.
Read chapter 6, skimming 6.5 and 6.6 (we will talk more about 6.6 later in the course). Do exercises 1, 7, 8, 17, 18, 22, 27, 29, 30, 31, 37, 44, 45 in section 6.3. Do exercises 2, 3, 6, 8 in section 6.4. You can download partial solutions to the homework; Cramer's rule and other information from later parts of chapter 6 will not be on the exam.
Read chapter 8 except for section 8.5. Do exercizes 4-8, 11-14, 19, 23-28, 34-35, 40-44, 46-48 in section 8.6. Updated: there was an error in one problem in the original solutions which has been corrected. Solutions.
Read chapter 9 on linear transformations. Do exercizes 1, 4, 11, 15, 17, 20-25, 43. Solutions.
Read chapter 12 on spectral theory, except for chapter 12.2.1 on principle directions (you can skim 12.2.2). Do exercises 3-9, 19-23, 32 in section 12.4. Update: do not do 35. Solutions.
Do the following problems on the Jordan canonical form and diagonalization. You can also find solutions.