The faculty plan is to return Quizzes taken on Monday by the following Wednesday or Thursday. In addition to any problem-specific feedback, we will also evaluate each problem using the following numeric codes:

5. perfect, including clear, complete, coherent, correct solution
6. nearly perfect, with only a few minor errors
7. many minor or a few major mistakes, but on the right track
8. correct start, but many major mistakes or goes off track early in process
9. something correct or relevant written down
10. blank, or nothing correct or relevant written down

If a problem is coded with a 0, 1, or 2, you should generally produce a revision. Often, a problem coded with a 3 should be considered for revision. Problems coded with a 4 or 5 will never require a revision.

• Brian is available from 3:30 – 4:30pm on Tue. Oct. 9 in the Cave, as usual
• Krishna is available from 11:30am – 12:30pm on Thu. Oct. 11 in the Cave
• We will have brief individual check-in meetings during Thursday’s Math Lab; you will meet with either Brian or Krishna this week, and then next week you will meet with the other.

• In Week 4, on Tuesday October 16, we’ll have a joint potluck mixer with students from the introductory program Matter and Motion.
• The potluck mixer will be from 11:45 to 1:15 in Purce Lecture Hall Classroom 5.
• Faculty will provide some pizza.
• Please coordinate with each other to bring potluck-style food and drinks (making sure to arrange for special food restrictions).
• Faculty will also provide disposable plates/bowls/cups and silverware. You are encouraged to bring your own plate/bowl, cup, and silverware, in order to limit trash.

Here are detailed Quiz Revision guidelines.

As announced in class on Monday, we’ve shifted our seminar plans for this week. The original plan for this week’s seminar has been shifted to next week. This week, we’ll be focusing on our program textbooks, as described in the link below.

• Week 3 Seminar
• Week 4 Seminar

Here are blank copies of the Week 3 Quizzes, for use in Quiz Workshop and for Quiz Revisions:

• DE Quiz #1 (Week 3)
• MVVC Quiz #1 (Week 3)

Here are Quiz Revision guidelines.

Please find the Week 3 Assignments by clicking on the links below:

• DE: Week 3 (updated 10/6 to add problem set, 10/10 for correction to 8.5.11)
  
• LA: Week 3 (updated 10/7 to add problem set)
  
• MVVC: Week 3 (updated 10/6 to add problem set, 10/10 for note on 4.11.13)
• Seminar: Week 3
  

Week 3 Class Meeting Schedule:

• We are on our standard schedule, with our new rooms.
• Mon. Oct. 8, 10am-noon, CAL: Quiz & Quiz Workshop. Quizzes: DE & MVVC. Bring your Problem Set Notebooks (PSNs) for PSN Check.
• Mon. Oct. 8, 1-3pm, Cave: MVVC. Bring Boas. Come with Big Math Ideas and your specific questions from the reading already written down.
• Tue. Oct. 9, 10am-noon, Cave: DE. Bring Boas. Come with Big Math Ideas and your specific questions from the reading already written down.
• Tue. Oct. 9, 1:30-3:30pm, Cave: LA. Bring Strang. Come with Big Math Ideas and your specific questions from the reading already written down.
  
• Wed. Oct. 3, 9-10:30am, Cave: MVVC (bring Boas).
• Wed. Oct. 3, 10:30am-noon, Cave: DE (bring Boas).
• Wed. Oct. 3, noon-1pm, Cave: Seminar (bring reading and writing prompt responses).
• Thu. Oct. 4, 10-11:30am, Cave: LA (bring Strang).
• Thu. Oct. 4, 12:30-4pm, CAL: All-Program Check-in; Math Lab.

Krishna will be available on Fri. Oct. 5 from 1- 2pm in the Cave.

I’ve written up a detailed example of Gaussian elimination (click here), and I wanted you to get it right away, in case you’re working on the LA homework this evening. I’ll bring paper copies of this handout to class tomorrow. If you can, please read through it before Thursday’s class. -BW

• The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2018 was awarded for “for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics” with one half “for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems” and the other half for “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses”. Popular science level explanations are available here and here, and a more advanced explanation is available here.
• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2018 will be announced Wed. Oct. 3. A popular science level explanation will be available here and a more advanced explanation will be available here.
• Any prize structure can be usefully viewed through lenses that includes politics, power, privilege, identity, diversity, equity, and access. Nevertheless, the Nobel Prizes in science do reflect important advances in the field.
  • I think that it is important to celebrate that Dr. Donna Strickland is the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. I also think it is important to note that there have been 209 individuals who have won the Physics Nobel. The other two women were Marie Curie (1903, and also the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911) and Maria Goepper-Mayer in 1963.

• It seems appropriate to link to these resources as well (let me know if this deserves its own post and if you can give me more resources like this to post):
  • Woman Physicist of the Month
  • Bouchet Award
  • The Mathematicians Project