Math 331  (Sections 1 and 4) Spring 2009

Instructor: Robert Gardner, Professor and Associate Department Head
Office: 1430 LGRT
Phone: 5-0029
e-mail: gardner@math.umass.edu
web page: www.math.umass.edu/~gardner


Section 1: MWF 10:10 LGRC A301
Section 4: MWF 11:15 LGRT 111

Text: Elementary Differential Equations (9th Edition), by W. Boyce and R. DiPrima, Wiley 2009.

Prerequisites: m131,m132
Co-requisite: m233

This is a preliminary informational web page for  sections 1 and  4 of math 331. Organizational aspects such as syllabus, assigned coursework, exams,  and grading will be announced closer to the start of the Spring term.

Remarks:

Students needing to add sections 1 or 4: space is tight in all math 331 sections, and students finding that sections 1 or 4 are closed should continue trying to add the course through Spire, as there is a lot of add/drop activity up through the end of the add/drop period. Students unable to enroll in sections 1 or 4  prior to the start of classes should attend the section they want to add. On the first day of class and I will begin an add list.  I will make further announcements on this web page and in class about when  I will begin signing add forms as it becomes clearer how much enrollment pressure there is.  The department may also increase section limits during this period, so you should persist in your efforts with Spire.
 
Homework and reading assignments from the text will be made by section and problem numbers for the currrent (9th) edition of the text. A natural question is whether students can get by using a previous (and cheaper) edition of the text. The short answer is an equivocal "yes, for the most part, but it might cause a few headaches and a missed homework problem or two". I've compared e.g. the relvent chapters in the 7th and the 9th editions. The numbering and content of problems at the beginning and middle of problem sets (at the end of each section) are generally identical, but they are usually different for the challenging problems at the  end of each set. The majority of assigned problems will be from the ones that are the same in these two editions. In terms of sections, the only difference  I see in syllabus topics and section numbering is that section 3.3 in the 7th edition has been deleted from the 9th, where this material has been moved to chapter  4. There are too many editions for me to check for differences between editions here, and on each assignment. If you choose to buy an earlier edition, you do it at your own risk. However, if you will have easy access to a copy of the 9th edition where you can compare reading and problem assignment numbers, you can probably get by very nicely with the 7th or 8th edition, but if you don't, this might cause more headaches than its worth, and might cause you to miss some credit on homework sets.