Notes for Tuesday-Thursday homework due on Nov. 29

Notes on interest, compound interest, effective rates, half life and loans

Notes for homework of Tuesday Thursday class due Nov. 22

Notes on frequency tables and the five number summary

Notes on frequency tables, n (length of list) and sum(x)

Notes on the shared birthday problem

Notes on binomial distributions (on our homework, making free throws)

Notes on using the normal distribution system (z-scores and look-up tables) to find the percentage between two z-score values (on our homework, males listed at a certain height, on the website, females listed at a certain height. Only the mu and sigma are different.)

Notes for Homework 10

I made a mistake labeling this homework assignment, calling it Homework 11. It is actually Homework 10 for the Tuesday-Thursday class.

These notes are from my statistics blog. The links contain a lot of information that we won't get to in Math for Liberal Arts. You should be able to search in your web browser for words like "mean", "median" and "mode", etc.

Notes on mean, median and mode

Notes on the five summary and outliers

Notes on raw scores to z-scores to proportions, also percentiles to z-scores to raw scores

Link to the biographies of five computer scientists, questions on in the in-class section of midterm 2

Five computer scientists

Notes for Homework 9

Notes on simultaneous equations (repeated from last week)

Notes for Homework 8

Notes on slope, point-slope and slope-intercept formulas

Notes on simultaneous equations
 

Notes for Homework 7

Notes on the distance formula and classifying triangle defined by three points on the plane

Notes on interior angle sums for polygons and the measure of the regular angle

Notes for tilings of the plane
 
 

Notes for Homework 6

Notes on classifying triangles by angles and by side lengths in both systems

Area of a triangle using Heron's Formula, area of a triangle defined by three points

Notes for the five British logicians of the 19th Century

Link to biographies of Lovelace, Dodgson, DeMorgan, Boole and Babbage.

Notes for Homework 5

 Notes on the Pythagorean Theorem and simplified square roots

Notes on bels, decibels and the Richter scale

Notes for Homework 4

 Notes on prime factorization and all factors of a positive number, also notes on fractions, percents and decimals

Notes on scientific notation

Notes on scales based on powers of 10

Notes for Homework 3

Notes for Venn Diagrams

Notes for contingency tables

Notes for probabilities based on contingency tables

Notes on converting time and adding and subtracting times

Notes on percents, decimals and fractions
 

Notes for Homework 2

Notes on Hexadecimal to Binary

Notes on logical operators - AND (^)   OR (v)   NOT (~)  IMPLIES (=>)

Notes of Set Theory

Notes for Homework 1

Notes on rounding and rounding error with fractions.


Notes on binary and decimal representation of numbers.


Notes on rounding to significant digits. 


The link to rounding to significant digits deals with rounding a number great than 1. For example 2^16 = 65,536.

65,536 rounded to one significant digit = 70,000

65,536 rounded to two significant digits = 66,000
65,536 rounded to three significant digits = 65,500

Let's consider rounding a number less than 1.

2^(-16) = 0.000015258789...

If we were asked to round this to the nearest thousandth, we would get 0.000. It's never a good idea to round a number that isn't zero to zero. Doing this means we aren't thinking at the right scale. Rounding to significant digits ensures we will never round a non-zero number to zero.

0.000015258789... rounded to one significant digit = 0.00002
0.000015258789... rounded to two significant digits = 0.000015
0.000015258789... rounded to three significant digits = 0.0000153

In most cases except scientific papers, rounding to three significant digits is considered sufficient.

Link to the stories of the four famous mathematicians

Short biographies of Archimedes, Newton, Euler and Gauss.

Important dates for Fall 2016

Add and drop dates
Last day to add: Sunday, September 4
Last day to drop class without a "W": Sunday, September 4
Last date to drop class with a "W": Friday, November 8

Holidays
Labor Day: Monday, September 5
Thanksgiving: Thursday, November 24

Test dates for Monday-Wednesday class
Midterm 1: Wed., Oct. 5
Midterm 2: Wed., Nov. 9
Comprehensive Final: Wed, Dec. 14 8:00-10:00 am (note time change)

Test dates for Tuesday-Thursday class
Midterm 1: Thurs., Sept. 29
Midterm 2: Thurs, Nov. 3
Comprehensive Final: Tues., Dec. 13 (normal class period)

Notes for Homework 11

Paying Loans

Converting from Customary to Metric and Back

Notes for Homework 10

Finding outliers: the five number summary and the z-score method

Using the look-up sheet for normal distribution.
 

Notes for Homework 9

Slope, point-slope, slope-intercept

Solving simultaneous equations

Solving simultaneous equations: Elimination

Solving simultaneous equations: Kramer's Rule 

Notes for Homework 8

Set Theory

Venn Diagrams

Contingency Tables

Link to the post on the British mathematicians who started mathematical logic

Link to post about Boole, de Morgan, Babbage, Countess Lovelace and Dodgson.

Notes for Homework 7

Pythagorean Theorem problems

Interior angle sum and regular angle measure

Time problems

Set theory
 

Notes for Homework 6

Area and classification of a three vertex triangle.

Second post on the same topic.
 

Notes for Homework 5

Simplifying and approximating square roots.

Classification of triangles.

Heron's formula.

Notes for Homework 4

Links to posts about the common logarithmic scales, the Richter scale and the bel/decibel system.

Link to the post on five computer scientists

Here is a link to the biographies of five computer scientists: John Von Neumann, Alan Truing, Grace Hopper, Edsger Dijkstra and Donald Knuth.

Notes for Homework 3

Posts on binary, decimal and hexadecimal

Posts on logical operators

Notes for Homework 2, handed out June 23, due June 27

Decimals and percents.

Repeating decimals to fractions in lowest terms.

Scales other than percent.

Scientific notation.
 

 

Notes for homework 1, June 21

Practice for Roman numerals.

Practice for all the problems.

Notes for 20 June 2016: Biographies of four famous mathematicians

Click her for a post about Archimedes, Sir Isacc Newton, Leonhard Euler and Karl F. Gauss.

Notes for May 9 and 11

The metric system and the customary system.

Notes for Homework due May 9

Frequency tables: mean and mode

Frequency tables: five number summary

Probability of making r shots out of n attempts.

The Birthday Problem.

Notes for homework due May 1

Notes on Five Number Summary and the method of finding outliers.

Normally distributed sets: z-scores associated with proportions and vice versa.

The last part of the homework wasn't covered in class, but it will be discussed on Monday.

Notes for homework due April 25

Practice problems for simultaneous equations.

Practice problems for conversion of time.
 

Topics for second midterm

The second midterm will have a take-home section and an in-class section. Some topics may appear in both parts. You are allowed a page of notes, front and back of a regular 8.5" x 11" piece of paper.

Homework 6 
 Interest rates and compounding
Half-life of isotopes
Paying back loans: Amount over life of loan
Playing back loans: Amount per month
Maximum amount you can get as a loan given monthly payment, interest rate and length of the loan

Homework 7
Triangles defined by angles
Classification system #1: Largest angle – obtuse, right or acute
Classification system #2: Relations between angles – scalene, isosceles, or equilateral
Triangles defined by side lengths
The triangle inequality
Both classifications by side lengths: Variations on the Pythagorean Theorem
Triangles defined by three points on the plane, one of the points (0, 0)
Distance between points
Both classifications by three points (distance is key for both)

Homework 8
Three points on the plane where none is (0, 0)
Finding the slope (m) between two points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2)
What it means when the slope is undefined: the formula x = k, some constant value
Point slope formula: y – y1 = m(x – x1)
x and y will remain variables m, x1 and y1 will become constants
Slope-intercept: y = mx + b

Homework 9
Tilings of the plane
Interior angle sum for a polygon with n sides (n-gon): sum = 180(n – 2)°
Regular angle sum for a polygon with n sides (n-gon): = 180(n – 2)°/n = (180–360/n)°
Coin problems

Notes for April 4th and 6th

Notes for regular angles and interior sum of angles and tiling the plane.
 

Practice problems for 100 coins or 100 tickets. (Our homework doesn't always have 100 coins, but there is nothing magical about the number, the methods shown will always work.)

Notes for slope, point-slope and slope-intercept

Links to explanation of slope and practice problems for point-slope and slope-intercept.

Notes on TrianglesDefined by anglesDefined by side lengthsDefined by three points on the plane

Classification of triangles based on the three angles. Because the sum must be 180°, only two of the three are needed to find the third. 

Practice problems for area and classification based on three side lengths and the Triangle Inequality, which determines of three lengths can be the sides of a triangle.

Practice problems for area and classification of triangles based on three points in the plane.

Notes for March 7 and 9

Notes for interest on savings, half life computation and paying back loans.

The syllabus posts at the bottom can be ignored.

Note for February 22 and 24

Links to percents and scales based on other powers of 10.

Links to note on rounding and rounding error.

Links to changing repeating decimals into fractions.

Links to simplifying square roots, including the Pythagorean Theorem practice.

Notes on Roman numerals and practical logarithms

A link to Roman numeral posts.

Links to posts on practical logarithms.

Practice Set #1.

Practice Set #2.

Notes on probabilities from contingency tables and scientific notation

A link to probabilities from contingency tables.

Scientific notation: A link to the basics
 

Links to set theory practice problems

Click on this for set theory practice problems.

Links to binary, decimal and hexadecimal conversionLinks to the logical operators AND (^) OR (v) and NOT(~)

Here is the link to previous posts about conversion from decimal to binary and hexadecimal numbers systems, including practice problems.

Here are posts with practice problems for using bitwise logical operators.
 

Link to the story of four great mathematicians

Here is a link to the life stories of Archimedes, Newton, Euler and Gauss.