| Course page: |
ON CAMPUS: http://www.math.fsu.edu/~mesterto/PDEI.html (this
page)
OFF CAMPUS: http://www.math.fsu.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/~mesterto/PDEI.html (with your
FSUID username and password) |
| Professor: | Dr M-G
|
| Office: | 202B Love
|
| Office hours: | Please click
here. Note that office
hours are primarily for personal matters that cannot be
addressed in class (as opposed to tutorial help, for
which see under How to study
below) |
| Phone: | (850 64) 42580
|
| Main website: |
Professor M-G's
Home Page Email: |
| Goal: | The purpose of this course is to
introduce partial differential equations—or PDES for
short—and some of their applications. The course is the first
part of a two-course sequence, with coverage very largely but not
exclusively restricted to PDEs having finite spatial domains (infinite
spatial domains being extensively considered in MAP 4342) |
| Class meets: |
In 106 LOV, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 11:00
a.m.—12:00 noon
|
| Text: |
Richard Haberman, Applied Partial Differential Equations
with Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems, 5th edition
(Pearson, 2013). Selected topics from Chapters 1-5, 7, 8 and 12 |
| Credit: | 3 semester hours |
| Eligibility: | Is your responsibility. You must
have the prerequisites listed below, and must never have completed with a
grade of C- or better a course for which MAP 4341 is a (stated or implied)
prerequisite |
| Prerequisites: |
| (i) |
C- or better in MAC 2313 (Calculus with Analytic Geometry
III) and |
| (ii) |
C- or better in MAP 2302 (Ordinary Differential Equations)
or MAP 3305 (Engineering Math I); and |
| (iii) | self-motivation and industriousness. My
philosophy of learning is perhaps best expressed by the
green curve in the diagram below: |
|
| |
ALTERNATIVE THEORIES OF LEARNING VERSUS
PAIN
 |
For further details, please click here.
|
| Communication: | I will send email on a
regular basis to whatever was your FSU email account during the
week before the beginning of term. It is your responsibility to check
it regularly. Moreover, if you change your email address at any time,
then you need to apprise me of your new address (because email is
sent to an alias stored on my computer, not FSU's server) |
| Your name: |
 |
|
I don't know who you are, but because
everything works so much better when I do, I would like to
learn your name as soon as possible. So, please take a sheet of
card stock (or even paper), fold it in half, write your name in large letters on
one side and stand it up on your desk so that I can see it.
(Write what you want me to call you: if you're a William who
likes to be called Dubya or a Margaret Jane who likes to be
called Dee Dee, write Dubya or Dee Dee, not William or Margaret
Jane.) Please bring your nameplate to every class
until I have finally learnt your name (which will take
significantly longer than it used to take when I started
out) |
|
| Course format: | We will follow the text, spending
most of our time in class on solving problems. At the end of each
period I will set homework for the following period (if not immediately
in class, then soon afterwards by email). Typically, this homework
will consist of a set of problems on the topic we have just studied
together with a passage of text to be read for the following period.
In class, I will always assume that you have read—though not
necessarily fully understood—the assigned passage.
A typical class will then proceed as follows.
It will begin with an opportunity for you to ask questions about the
homework problems. Depending on the time available, I will answer each
question either in class or (especially if an unstarred problem is
involved) by posting a solution online later, or by some combination of
the two. We will then move on to the topic of the current period. I
will give a brief lecture summarizing the key points of the passage you
have read for homework—enough to get us going, but deliberately
excluding details—before proceeding as quickly as possible to
solving problems (in which details will emerge), with as much
interaction as possible from you.
Questions may be asked at any time—and
should be, if there's anything you don't understand. Perhaps you have
a question about the assigned passage that you anticipate being
answered by one or more of the problems we work together; in which
case, it may well be socially minded not to ask your question at the
outset. However, if it turns out that you anticipated incorrectly, then
be sure to ask your question before the class is over! |
| Test format: | You must write your answers in
ink. If you make a mistake, then just cross it out and make a
correction (a far more efficient process, by the way, than erasing
pencilling). Begin each question (but not subsequent parts of the same
question) on a fresh sheet of paper, use one side of the paper only,
and have your solutions stapled together in order at the end of the
examination (without the question sheet, which is yours to keep).
Please do not use dog ears. (Not owning a stapler is no excuse:
you can borrow the stapler in 208 Love for a take-home test, and I will
bring a stapler to the classroom test.) Needless to say, your name
must appear legibly on Page 1 of your solutions (as opposed to on the
question sheet, which will not help, because you are keeping it) |
| Grades: | Will be based on attendance and
participation in class (10%), two take-home tests (30% apiece) and a
two-part classroom test (30%). Each take-home test will begin at the
end of class on a Wednesday and end at the beginning of
class on the following Monday. The classroom test will utilize the
last two class periods.
Note that quality of presentation is extremely
important. It is not enough merely to produce an answer: the method by
which you obtain it must be sound, and you must clearly demonstrate
that you understand it. Therefore, there will be penalties
(commensurate with degree of infraction) for bad
presentation—which includes bad grammar, illegibility,
incompleteness, incoherence and untidiness—especially for the
take-home tests. Even for the classroom test, however, you must show
all necessary steps in your method, with enough comments and/or
diagrams to convince me that you thoroughly understand. Work that is
so badly presented as to be unacceptable will be returned ungraded.
Precise cut-off points for A, B and C will be
determined by the distribution of grades at the end of the semester,
but are likely be in the vicinity of 90%, 80% and 70%, respectively. In
borderline cases, later scores will carry more weight than earlier
scores; a smaller number of completely correct solutions will carry
more weight than a proportionate number of fragmentary answers; and a
record of active participation in class will carry more weight than a
record of passive attendance (in that order of relative importance
among these three factors). Plus or minus grades may be assigned
in a manner consistent with standard University practice.
Please note that partial credit will be awarded
only when part of a solution is completely correct—not when all of
a solution is partially correct, whatever that means, if anything. A
score for a question worth 10 points should be interpreted as follows:
| 10 |
Practically perfect |
9 |
Still very good, but
lacking—or wrong about—a significant detail |
| 8 |
Still good, but lacking—or
wrong about—significant details |
| 7 |
Minimally satisfactory. You
have—just—managed to demonstrate that you basically
understand and are at least capable of getting all details correct
(although it clearly did not happen this time) |
| 6 |
A grade that will not be given |
| 5 |
Half right in some appropriate sense
(e.g., there were two parts, each worth 5 points, and your first part
was practically perfect) |
| 1-4 |
Not even half right and showing
little understanding, but some degree of positive effort |
| 0 |
Zero effort, or submitted in pencil |
Also note that a grade of I will not be given to avoid a grade of F or to
give additional study time. Failure to process a course drop will result in
a course grade of F |
| Solutions to homework exercises: | Will eventually be
posted here, but only after being at least
seriously attempted by the class as a whole, and only if specifically
requested (if you ask in class, be advised to back up your request
with an email, otherwise I am likely to forget). I caution you,
however: never read the posted solution to a problem until first
of all you have seriously attempted the problem yourself. If
you have at least made a serious (and I do mean serious)
attempt, then—even if you were unable to complete the problem
yourself—you will benefit from reading the posted solution; if
not, then not (rather, you will merely form a false impression of how
well you understand ... as indicated by the above learning-versus-pain diagram) |
| Test solutions: |
Will be posted online here (along with the
test itself), making grading more efficient: instead of writing the
same corrections on numerous manuscripts, I simply identify the
point(s) at which a solution goes awry |
| Attendance policy: | You are expected to attend class
regularly, and bear the full responsibility for learning anything
covered during any class that you miss. On the other hand, it would
be extremely anti-social to attend class if you either have, or are
coming down with, a contagious disease. So please keep me apprised
(by email) of any illness or other emergency, so that I can make any
necessary adjustments (and please make friends within the class as
soon as possible if you haven't done so already, so that there is
someone you can call upon to borrow notes if the need should
arise) |
| Exam policy: | No makeup exams. An absence may be
excused given sufficient evidence of exceptional or extenuating
circumstances (in which case, extra weight will be attached to the
other exams). But you must either have discussed the matter with me
(well) in advance; or, in the case of illness, have brought me a note
from a physician explicitly stating that you were too ill to attend
class on the day in question. An unexcused absence will result in a
grade of zero. See also Calculator policy
for classroom tests and Etiquette for
take-home tests |
| Calculator policy: |
For a take-home test you may
use any calculator. By contrast, for a classroom test you are allowed
to use only either a Texas Instruments TI30XA Scientific
Calculator or a four-function calculator. The use
of any other calculator for a classroom test is strictly
forbidden |
| Etiquette: |
You are firmly bound by Florida State University's Academic Honor Code. Briefly, you have the
responsibility to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in
your own work, to refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity
in the University community, and to foster a high sense of integrity
and social responsibility on the part of the University community. Even
more briefly, you must neither cheat nor enable others to cheat. The
penalties for violations can be severe. Please carefully read the
section in the FSU Student Handbook on the Honor Code and official
procedures for dealing with students who violate it. If you are in any
doubt at all as to what constitutes acceptable behavior in this regard,
you should ask me for clarification.
In particular, for a take-home test you may
use any inanimate aid (including any calculator), but all such use must
be explicitly declared. Although you may discuss the test with other
students in general terms—meaning that discussion is oral, and
absolutely nothing is copied down—the solutions you present
must be your very own work; moreover, any such discussions must be
explicitly declared (i.e., you must supply the name of every
such discussant and the nature of the discussion, or else you are
in violation of the Academic Honor Code).
You are also bound by the ordinary rules and
customs of polite behavior that prevail in a civilized society. I
assume that you know these rules and customs, and I expect you to
comply with them. (In particular, you are not allowed to use a cell
phone or otherwise have private conversations with others during
class.) |
| Test dates: | Wednesday,
May 28—Monday, June 2
Wednesday, July 2—Monday, July
7
Wednesday, July 30 and Friday, August 1 |
| How to study: |
There is a lot of material to be covered in this course, so it is
important that you keep up from the very beginning, always attempting
as many as possible of the homework problems. I encourage you to form a
homework study group with others in the class. But meet only after each
of you individually has attempted at least some of the problems.
Regardless, if you get stuck, then send me your
question by email. As soon as I possibly can, which might be as soon as within
half an hour, but might also be as late as a few days later—I have a
life, too, you know—I will reply, not to you, but rather to the class
alias (after carefully concealing your identity, just in case you are
inexplicably bashful about being perceived as smart enough to ask a
question).
Please note the following. First, you must
identify yourself (i.e., you remain anonymous to the other students in
the class, but not to me) in the body of your message (because
your username typically does not identify you to me, and I don't reply
to anonymous email). Second, to ensure a relatively rapid response,
your question should be self-contained: in particular, it is unwise to
refer to the text (which I almost always leave at the office, whereas
you almost always ask your questions when I'm at home). Third, and
most important of all, be as specific as possible in describing your
difficulty: the more precisely you identify how you got stuck, the more
helpful my reply is likely to be |
| Disabilities: | If you have a disability requiring
academic accommodations, then not only should you register with the Student
Disability Resource Center (SDRC),
but also you should bring me written confirmation from SDRC during the
first week of class. This and other class materials are available in
alternative format upon request. |
This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format
upon request.
For more information about services available to FSU students with
disabilities, contact the:
On-campus tutoring and writing assistance is available for many courses at
Florida State University. For more information, visit the Academic Center
for Excellence (ACE) Tutoring Services' comprehensive list of on-campus
tutoring options—see http://ace.fsu.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/tutoring or contact
tutor@fsu.edu.
High-quality tutoring is available by appointment and on a walk-in basis.
These services are offered by tutors trained to encourage the highest level
of individual academic success while upholding personal academic integrity.
"Except for changes that substantially affect implementation of the
evaluation (grading) statement, this syllabus is a guide for the course and
is subject to change with advance notice.''