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Linear Algebra
Spring 2012

⇒ to time table and download of class material

News

• Class Evaluation: The class evaluation is online between 30 May and 15 June. I would very much appreciate your feedback, so please spend a couple of minutes to fill out the online form. Thanks!
• Final Exam: The final exam will take place on
  • Tuesday, 19 June, between 10:10–13:00 (Note that this one hour longer than usual!)
  Regulations:
  • open book: any book is allowed
  • not allowed are: advanced calculators with vector/matrix capabilities or similar, telecommunication devices like mobile phones, laptops, a "friend", or any other help from outside...
  • covered material: everything covered in class (Chapters 1 to 6 without Section 6.6)
• Mid-Term Exam: The mid-term exam will take place on
  • Tuesday, 17 April, 10:10–12:00, in ED 203
  Regulations:
  • open book: any book is allowed
  • not allowed are: calculator, telecommunication devices like mobile phones, laptops, a "friend", or any other help from outside...
  • covered material: Chapters 1 to 3

Course Description

This course is an introductory course in linear algebra. Its goal is to provide the students with a profound knowledge about linear algebra and some of its important applications. We will cover the following subjects:

• Vectors & matrices
• Solving linear equations:
  • Rows and columns of matrices
  • Elimination
  • Inverse matrices
  • Factorization
• Vector spaces:
  • The four subspaces: row space, column space, nullspace, left nullspace
  • Rank
  • Independence
  • Dimensions
  • The Fundamental Theorem of Linear Algebra
• Orthogonality:
  • Projections
  • Least squares
  • Gram-Schmidt
• Determinants
• Eigenvalues & eigenvectors
• Singular value decomposition
• Linear transformations
• Applications

For more detail see the time table below.

We hope that a student who finishes the course will be able to better understand the principles of linear algebra, but also to appreciate its beauty: then in spite its incredible importance as a tool for every engineer, the linear algebra demonstrates mathematical elegance and power at its best.

Prerequisites

• Some high-school math

Instructor

Prof. Stefan M. Moser
Engineering Building IV, Office 727
phone: 03-571 21 21 ext. 54548
e-mail:

Teaching Assistant

In case you would like to discuss some questions in Chinese, you may contact the TAs of this class:

	Chou Yu-Hsing	Huang Yu-Ming
e-mail:
office:	Engineering Building IV, Office 716A (ED716A)	Engineering Building IV, Office 716A (ED716A)
phone:	03-571 21 21 ext. 54630	03-571 21 21 ext. 54630
office hours:	on appointment	on appointment

To make our and your life easier, let's agree on the following rule: You may contact or visit the TAs at any time also outside of office hours. However, if you haven't made an appointment in advance, they have the right to tell you that they haven't got time right at that moment.

Time and Place

The course is scheduled for 3 hours per week:

• Tuesday, 10:10–12:00 (CD), Engineering Building IV, Room 203 (ED203)
• Thursday, 15:40–16:30 (G), Engineering Building IV, Room 203 (ED203)

The course starts on Tuesday, 21 February 2012, and finishes on Thursday, 21 June 2012.

Office Hours

NCTU requests that every teacher offers two hours per week where students may come to ask questions:

• Tuesday, 15:30–17:30, Engineering Building IV, Office 727

However, we would like to encourage you to show up in the teacher's or teaching assistants' office at any time whenever you have questions about the class or related subjects. Moreover, we are always available during and after classes.

Textbook

Gilbert Strang: "Introduction to Linear Algebra," Wellesley-Cambridge Press, Massachusetts, USA, fourth edition, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-9802327-2-1.

For certain topics there might be additional handouts during class. Note that online one can find video lectures of Prof. Strang teaching linear algebra based on his textbook.

Exercises

Every week, an exercise will be distributed in class and also made available online for download. This exercise will consist of several problems that need to be solved at home and handed in during the class of the following week. A model solution will be distributed and made available online afterwards.

We believe the exercises to be extremely important and crucial to the understanding of the course. They also serve as a preparation for the mid-term and final exams and we therefore highly recommend to solve them. To pass the course you need to hand in at least 10 exercises.

Exams

There will be one mid-term and one final exam. The final exam is going to last three hours. Both exams will be open-book. Details about the covered material will be published in due time.

Grading

The grade will be an average of

• the homework and class participation (15%),
• the midterm exam (35%), and
• the final exam (50%).

The grade of the homework will not be based on the correctness of the answers, but rather on the effort the student shows in trying to solve them. Moreover, I will try to reward students who participate actively in the course.

This course is worth 3 credits.

Special Remarks

The lecture will be held in English.

Time Table

Note that some details of this program might change in the course of the semester.

Note that some linked documents in this table can only be downloaded from within NCTU and NTHU!

-||-   _|_ _|_     /    __|__   Stefan M. Moser
[-]     --__|__   /__\    /__   Senior Scientist, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
_|_     -- --|-    _     /  /   Adjunct Professor, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
/ \     []  \|    |_|   / \/    Web: https://moser-isi.ethz.ch/