MATH 105: Mathematics in Modern Society

 

Professor/Lecturer:  Dr. Bruce Bayly

Office: Math Building, room 613           Email: bjb@math.arizona.edu

Phone: 621-4766 (work), 795-8761 (home)

 

Textbook:  Excursions in Modern Mathematics (5th edition) by Peter Tannenbaum, shrinkwrapped with  Consumer Math softcover excerpt.

 

Office hours:  Thursday mornings from 9a.m.-12 p.m. in my own office.  I will also be available for a couple of hours per week in the open access tutoring rooms in the Math East building, but it may be more difficult to get me alone over there.

 

Web page:  I will be setting up a course web page for course information, updates and changes to policy, syllabus, homework solution sets, exam solutions, and other supplementary material.  The URL will be

http://www.math.arizona.edu/~bjb/math105/fall03/index.htm

You should make a point of visiting the web page frequently.

 

Listserve:  We will set up an e-mail listserve for the course, so that students, lecturer, and instructors can have a forum for discussing questions or other issues connected with the course.  We will give you instructions for adding yourself to the listserve as soon as we have it up and running.

 

Homework:  I will assign and collect homework, but I am sorry to say I will not be able to give detailed attention to every solution.  I will mostly be checking that you made a serious attempt to do the problems as best you can.  I will post solutions to assigned problems on the course web page.  There will be 10 assignments each worth 5 points.

 

Quizzes:  There will be 10 quizzes, each worth 5 points.  They will be short (5 or 10 minutes allowed) and not difficult if you have mastered the week’s homework.  They will be given on Fridays near the beginning of class, so don’t be late!

 

Exams:  There will be four in-class exams, on 12 September, 10 October, 7 November, and 5 December.  Each in-class exam will be worth 75 points.   The Final exam, worth 150 points, will be on Friday 19 December from 8-10 a.m..

 

Project: There will be a project worth 50 points in the Statistics section.

 

Course grade: All points from homework, quizzes, and exams will be added together, and the result divided by the total possible (500 in this case).  Final percentages above 90, 80, 70, or 60 guarantee letter grades of A, B, C, or D respectively.  I may revise these cutoffs downward if the exams end up being unduly lengthy or difficult.