Noah White

University of Califonia,
Los Angeles

Math 3B: Calculus for life sciences students

This is the course website for Math 3B: Calculus for Life Scinces Students running in Fall 2017. All information about homework, quizes and exams will be posted here.

The syllabus contains information on the official policies for collaboration on homework, late homework, grading and changing grades.

We will be using Piazza for this class. See below for more information.

Instructor, TAs and office hours

 Instructor: Noah White (noah@math.ucla.edu) Office hours: MS 6304, Thursday 10-11:30am, Friday 9:30-11am TA: Bohyun Kim (bohyunk@math.ucla.edu) Office hours: MS 3921, Thursday 3:30-4:30pm Kevin Miller (millerk22@math.ucla.edu) MS 3965, Thursday 9-10am Ryan Wallace (rcwallace@math.ucla.edu) MS 2361, Thursday 9-10am

Please check back here as office hours and locations may change. I am teaching two classes this quarter. To accommodate all students, I am going to prioritise 3B on Thursdays and 170A on Fridays. Feel free to come to either office hour with this in mind.

 Learning assistants: Connie, Jayesh, Kelsey, Jennifer and Nick. Office hours: Covell Commons, 227, Friday 6-8pm

Communication

I would appreciate your help managing communication for the class.

Mathematical questions should be asked on Piazza (see below). In addition you should make use of my, and the TA’s, office hours. Administrative questions should in the first instance be directed to your TA. If your TA cannot resolve your query then you should contact me.

If you need to email me, the subject line must include the string math3b. If not, then there is a good chance your email will slip through the cracks and remain unanswered.

Textbook

S. J. Schreiber, Calculus for the Life Sciences, Wiley

Owning a copy of the textbook will be very helpful and is recommended however you might not find it necessary. I will post links to other sources here as time goes on. We will not be using WileyPlus so feel free to buy an old or used copy of the textbook - any edition is fine.

Problem sets, homework and quizzes

There will be a problem set assigned every week. Most of these will not be collected however it is strongly recommended that you complete it.

In weeks 2, 5, 9 (as indicated in the class schedule below) a small number questions from the problem set will be assigned as homework and collected and graded.

In weeks 3, 6, 10 a short quiz will be conducted in the discussion sessions. Questions on the quiz will be drawn from the problem set (or will be very similar to one of these questions). The lowest 2 scores out of all homeworks and quizzes will be dropped. The homework and quizzes will count for a total of 10% of your grade.

Lecture notes

Here I will indicate which sections of the textbook will be covered in each lecture and the relevant problems in each problem set. It is recommended that you read the textbook and think about some of the problems before the lecture.

You will find links to the lecture notes and slides as they become available. They represent more or less what we covered in lectures but not exactly, depending on how many questions I got to and if we ran out of time.

• Lecture 1: Review and limits and differentiation. Questions 1-6 in PS1.
• Lecture 2: Introduction to graphing. Question 9a,d,e on PS1.
• Lecture 3: More graphing and slanted asymptotes. Question 9b,c,f on PS1.
• Lecture 4: Optimization, maximums and minimums. Questions 1a, 2a on PS2.
• Lecture 5: More optimization examples. Question 7 on PS2.
• Lecture 6: More optimization examples and antiderivatives.
• Lecture 7: Area under curves and accumulated change.
• Lecture 8: More accumulated change.
• Lecture 9: The definite integral and substitution.
• Lecture 10: Review.
• Lecture 11: More integrals.
• Lecture 12: Accumulated change using Riemann sums.
• Lecture 13: More accumulated change using Riemann sums.
• Lecture 14: Long division and partial fractions.
• Lecture 15: More partial fractions.
• Lecture 16: Modelling using differential equations.
• Lecture 17: Basic examples of ODEs.
• Lecture 18: Separation of variables
• Lecture 19: Linear models.
• Lecture 20: Review.
• Lecture 21: Slope fields.
• Lecture 22: Eulers method.
• Lecture 23: Phase lines and equilibria.
• Lecture 24: Bifurcation diagrams.
• Lecture 25: More bifurcation diagrams.
• Lecture 26: Review.
• Lecture 27: Review.

Exams

There will be two midterms and a final exam. Apart from the exceptions mentioned below, only writing equipment will be allowed in exams. Exams must be written in pen.

• Midterm 1: 8am Monday 23 October
• Midterm 2: 8am Monday 20 November
• Final Exam: 8am Wednesday 13 December

Cheatsheets: For each exam, students may bring a cheat sheet. Each student must prepare their own handwritten cheat sheet. For the midterms, the cheat sheet may consist of one side of half a standard (A4 or letter) sheet of paper (i.e. A5 or letter folded in half lengthways). For the final, the cheat sheet may consist of one side of a standard sheet of paper. Cheatsheets that do not meet these requirements will be confiscated at the beginning of the exam.

Calculators: You may use a non-programmable, non-graphing calculator in exams. Calculators not meeting this specification will be confiscated.

Study: Here I will post some practice exams which might aid your study.

The midterm scores will be adjusted to account for any difference in difficulty. Your final grade will be calculated using the maximum of the following two grading schemes. Your letter grade will then be determined by your rank in the class. Unless something very out of the ordinary occurs I expect to give approximately 20-30% A’s and 55-65% A’s and B’s combined.

Option 1:

10% (4 best homework/quiz scores) +
40% (combined midterm scores) +
50% (final exam score)


Option 2:

10% (4 best homework/quiz scores) +
30% (best midterm score) +
60% (final exam score)


Effectively, this will mean that unless you score worse in the final than both midterms, your lowest midterm score will be dropped. This also means missing one midterm probably will not impact your grade in any serious way.

Schedule

This is a tentative schedule. Apart from the dates of exams, it may change. Numbers refer to sections of the textbook.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
0. 9/25
9/26
9/27
9/28
9/291
Review
1. 10/22
4.1
10/3
10/43
4.1
10/5
10/64
4.2
2. 10/95
4.3-4
10/10
10/116
5.1
10/12
10/137
5.2 HW 1
3. 10/168
5.2
10/17
Quiz 1
10/189
5.3
10/19
Quiz 1
10/2010
Review
4. 10/23
Midterm 1
10/24
10/2511
5.4
10/26
10/2712
5.5
5. 10/3013
5.6
10/31
11/114
5.6
11/2
11/315
5.8 HW 2
6. 11/616
6.1
11/7
Quiz 2
11/817
6.2
11/9
Quiz 2
Vets Day
(no class)
7. 11/1318
6.2
11/14
11/1519
6.3
11/16
11/1720
Review
8. 11/20
Midterm 2
11/21
11/2221
6.4
Thanksgiving
(no class)
Thanksgiving
(no class)
9. 11/2722
6.5
11/28
11/2923
6.5
11/30
12/124
6.6 HW 3
10. 12/425
6.6
12/5
Quiz 3
12/626
Review
12/7
Quiz 3
12/827
Review

Piazza

Piazza is a question and answer style forum which we will be using for this class.

You can ask questions, either as yourself or anonymously. I highly encourage you to also try answering others’ questions. Teaching others is by far the most effective way to learn and solidify what you already know. The TAs and I will monitor the discussion and answer questions occasionally.

Obviously homework questions and solutions should not be posted on Piazza. Offences will be treated as academic dishonesty/cheating.