MATHEMATICS E-23a, FALL 2017

Linear Algebra and Real Analysis I

Last revised: August 25, 2017

Course Website: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/29865

Instructor: Paul Bamberg (to be addressed as “Paul,” please)

Paul graduated from Harvard in 1963 with a degree in physics and received his
doctorate in theoretical physics at Oxford in 1967. He taught in the Harvard
physics department from 1967 to 1995 and joined the math department in 2001.
From 1982 to 2000 he was one of the principals of the speech recognition company
Dragon Systems. If you count Extension School and Summer School, he has prob-
ably taught more courses, in mathematics, physics, and computer science, than
anyone else in the history of Harvard. He was the first recipient of the White Prize
for excellence in teaching introductory physics.
Email: bamberg@tiac.net
Office: Science Center 322, (617-49)5-9560
Office Hours:
Tuesday, 1:30-2:30 in Science Center 322.

Head Teaching Assistant: Joe Palin (to be addressed as “Joe,” please)

Email: jgpalin@gmail.com

Course Assistants:(mostly former students in Math 23a or Math E-23a)

• Alex Patel alexanderpatel@college.harvard.edu

• Giacomo Barbone giacomo.e.barbone@gmail.com

• Jennifer Le Hégaret jlehegaret@gmail.com

• Mihika Shilpi mihikashilpi@g.harvard.edu

• Rachel Gologorsky rgologorsky@college.harvard.edu

• David Xu davidxu@college.harvard.edu

• Grant Murray cael@alum.mit.edu .

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Goals: Math E-23a is a cross-listing of Math 23a, the first half of a moderately
rigorous Harvard College course in linear algebra and multivariable calculus. Math
23a/E-23a is designed for students who are serious about mathematics and inter-
ested in being able to prove the theorems that they use, but who are as much
concerned about the application of mathematics in fields like physics and eco-
nomics as about “pure mathematics” for its own sake. Trying to cover both theory
and practice makes for a challenging course with a lot of material, but it is appro-
priate for the audience! Both Math 23a and Math E-23a use videos of the lectures
from fall 2015.
Students in Math E-23a generally are strengthening their background in proof-
based mathematics in preparation for graduate work in fields like economics, appled
mathematics, or statistics.

Prerequisites: This course is designed for the student who received a grade of 5
on the Math BC Advanced Placement examination or an A in a college course in
single-variable calculus like Math E-16. Probably the most important prerequisite
is the attitude that mathematics is fun and exciting.
Our assumption is that the typical Math E-23a student knows only high-school
algebra and single-variable calculus and is currently better at formula-crunching
than at doing proofs. We do not assume that Math E-23 students have any prior
experience in either of these areas beyond solving systems of linear equations in
high school algebra.
We will devote four weeks to single-variable real analysis. Real analysis is
the study of real-valued functions and their properties, such as continuity and
differentiability, as well as sequences, series, limits, and convergence. This means
that if you had a calculus course that touched only lightly on topics like series,
limits, and continuity, or if you are an international student whose calculus course
omitted these topics, you will be OK.
Students who register for graduate credit are required to learn and use the
scripting language R. This option is also available to everyone else in the course.
You need to be only an experienced software user, not a programmer. If you are
planning to count this course for a graduate degree in Harvard Extension, you
must enroll for graduate credit. Otherwise undergraduate credit is fine, even if
you have one or more college degrees!

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 Classes
Videos have been made of all the lectures, and these have been posted on the
Web site. The course materials for each week list the relevant videos.
There is also an optional two-hour class on each week’s material.
Classes will meet on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday following the week in which
you are expected to watch the lectures. Members of the class will present six
seminar topics, which go over key definitions and proofs, during the first hour.
The second hour will be devoted to problem solving in small groups. If you choose
the “participation” option, these will count toward your grade. Lecture videos are
crucial background for class!
Class times:

• Thursday 2-4 pm online (evening in Europe)

• Thursday 3-5 pm on campus (captured on video and posted on the website)

• Friday 7:30-9:30 pm mixed on campus ond online

• Sunday 3-5 pm mixed on-campus and online.

Extension students lead busy lives and often need to travel. So you only have
to volunteer to present a seminar topic in 10 of the 12 weeks. If you are out of town
twice and send the section instructor a one-line email explaining the circumstances,
you can still get full credit for participation.
If you prefer, you can opt out of class participation. In that case you do not
attend class, and homework and exams will count for a greater fraction of your
grade. You may of course attend office hours to get help with the homework, and
you will have access to the solutions to problems that were solved in class and
to videos of the on-campus seminar section. The course assistants will hold office
hours, some online and some in Cambridge, at which students can get together to
discuss homework problems and present proofs to one another. Participation is
optional but is strongly recommended.
Yes, this course is a lot of work, but it appears to cover all the math that
admissions committees are looking for. Think of it as two courses for the price of
one!
For each lecture, there is also a scan of Paul’s lecture notes on the Web site.
Consensus is that you do will do best to take your own notes and use these only
as backup.
Some students report that it is efficient to play the easy parts of the lecture at
1.5 times normal speed, then to slow down and perhaps even to run twice though
difficult proofs or intricate examples.

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Exams: There will be two quizzes and one final exam.
Quiz 1: first weekend in October (module 1, weeks 1-4)
Quiz 2: first weekend in November (module 2, weeks 5-8)
Final Exam: in mid-December (module 3, weeks 9-12)
Quizzes can be done at home. You will need to find a informal proctor (family
members or roommates are OK) who will sign a statement that you completed
the quiz under closed-book conditions, with computers and cell phones turned off.
You must complete the quiz at a single sitting during a specified 24-hour period,
but there is otherwise no time limit. Two hours should be more than sufficient.
Quizzes will include questions that resemble the ones done in class, and each
quiz will include two randomly-chosen proofs from among the numbered proofs in
the relevant module. There may be other short proofs similar to ones that were
done in lecture and problems that are similar to homework problems.
The final examination will focus on material from the last five weeks of the
course. Students who live in New England will take a proctored three-hour exam
in Cambridge. Others will have to find an official proctor using the Extension
School’s Distance Exams office.
If you have an unexpected time conflict for one of the quizzes, contact Paul
as soon as you know about it, and special arrangements can be made. In 2015,
one student took a quiz while flying to Europe for an interview, with the flight
attendant serving are her proctor! Time conflicts involving the final exam must
be dealt with by the Distance Exams Ofiice.

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Textbooks:
Vector Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential Forms, Hubbard and Hubbard,
fourth or fifth edition, Matrix Editions. We will cover only Chapters 1-3. Almost
all the changes in the fifth edition come later in the book. If you plan to continue
in Math E-23b or E-23c in the spring,get the current (fifth) edition. A used copy
of the fourth edition, if you find one at an attractive price, will suffice for the fall
term.

Ross, Elementary Analysis: The Theory of Calculus, 2nd Edition, 2013.

This will be the primary text for the module on single-variable real analysis.
It is available electronically through the Harvard library system (use HOLLIS and
search for the author and title). If you like to own bound volumes, used copies can
be found on amazon.com for as little as $25, but be sure to get the correct edition!

Lawvere, Conceptual mathematics: a first introduction to categories, 2nd Edi-

tion, 2009.
We will only be using the first chapter, and the book is available for free
download through the Harvard library system.

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Proofs:
Learning proofs can be fun, and we have put a lot of work into designing an
enjoyable way to learn high level and challenging mathematics! Each week’s course
materials includes two proofs. Often these proofs appear in the textbook and will
also be covered in lecture. They also may appear as quiz questions.
You, as students, can earn points towards your grade by presenting these proofs
to teaching staff and to each other without the aid of your course notes. Here is
how the system works:
When we first learn a proof in class, only members of the teaching staff are “qual-
ified listeners.” Anyone who presents a satisfactory proof to a qualified listener
also becomes qualified and may listen to proofs by other students. This process of
presenting proofs to qualified listeners occurs separately for every proof.
You are expected to present each proof before the date of the quiz on which it
might appear; so each proof has a deadline date. Distance students may reference
the additional document which details how to go about remotely presenting proofs
to classmates and teaching staff.
Each proof is worth 1 point. Here is the grading system:

• Presenting a proof to Paul, Joe, one of the course assistants, or a fellow

student who has become a qualified listener: 0.95 points before the deadline,
0.8 points after the deadline. You may only present each proof once.

• Listening to a fellow student’s proof: 0.1 point. Only one student can receive
credit for listening to a proof.

• After points have been tallied at the end of the term, members of the course
staff may assign the points that they have earned by listening to proofs
outside of section to any students that they feel deserve a bit of extra credit.

Students who do the proofs early and listen to lots of other students’ proofs can
get more than 100%, but there is a cap of 30 points total.You can almost reach
this cap by doing each proof before the deadline and listening twice to each proof.
Either you do a proof right and get full credit, or you give up and try again
later. There is no partial credit. It is OK for the listener to give a couple of small
hints.
You may consult the official list of proofs that has the statement of each theorem
to be proved, but you may not use notes. That will also be the case when proofs
appear on quizzes and on the final exam.
It is your responsibility to use the proof logging software on the course
Web site to keep a record of proofs that you present or listen to. You can also
use the proof logging software to announce proof parties and to find listeners for
your proofs.
Each quiz will include two questions which are proofs chosen at random from
the four weeks of relevant material. The final exam will have three proofs, all from
material after the second quiz. Students generally do well on the proof questions.

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 Alternatively, you may opt out of the proof logging system. In that case you
will need to do one more proof on each exam, and you will be expected, over the
course of the term, to upload eight proofs to the course Web site.
Advice for the grade-conscious:
It is easy for a diligent student to get close to 100% for class participation and
perhaps even a bit more than 100% for proof logging. However, if you fail to attend
class faithfully or do not present proofs before the deadline, you would probably
have been better off just relying on homework and exams.

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Useful software:

• R and RStudio
This is required only for Extension students who register for graduate credit,
but it is an option for everyone. Consider learning R if you

– are interested in computer science and want practice in using software

to do things that are more mathematical than can be dealt with in CS
50 or 51.
– are thinking of taking a statistics course, which is likely to use R.
– are hoping to get an interesting summer job or summer internship that
uses mathematics or deals with lots of data.
– want to be able to work with large data files in research projects in any
field (life sciences, economics and finance, government, etc.)

R is free, open-source software. Instructions for download and installation

are on the Web site. You will have the chance to use R at the first class, so
install it right away, preferably on a laptop computer that you can bring to
class.
On the course Website are a set of R scripts, with accompanying YouTube
videos, that explain how to do almost every topic in the course by using R.
These scripts are optional for undergraduate-credit students, but they will
enhance your understanding both of mathematics and of R.

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• LaTeX
This is the technology that is used to create all the course handouts. Once
you learn how to use it, you can create professional-looking mathematics on
your own computer.
The editor that is built into the Canvas course Web site is based on LaTeX.
One of the course requirements is to upload four proofs to the course Web site
in a medium of your choice. One option is to use LaTeX. Alternatively, you
can use the Canvas file editor (LaTeX based), or you can make a YouTube
video.
I learned LaTeX without a book or manual by just taking someone else’s files,
ripping out all the content, and inserting my own, and so can you. You will
need to download freeware MiKTeX version 2.9 (see http://www.miktex.org),
which includes an integrated editor named TeXworks.
From http://tug.org/mactex/ you can download a similar package for the
Mac OS X.
When in TeXworks, use the Typeset/pdfLaTeX menu item button to create
a .pdf file. To learn how to create fractions, sums, vectors, etc., just find an
example in the lecture outlines and copy what I did. All the LaTeX source
for lecture outlines, assignments, and practice quizzes is on the Web site, so
you can find working models for anything that you need to do.
The course documents contain examples of diagrams created using TikZ,
the built-in graphics editor. It is also easy to include .jpg or .png files
in LaTeX. If you want to create diagrams, use Paint or try Inkscape at
http://www.inkscape.org, an excellent freeware graphics program. Stu-
dents have found numerous other solutions to the problem of creating graph-
ics, so just experiment.

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Use of R:
You can earn “R bonus points” in three ways:

• By being a member of a group that uploads solutions to section problems

that require creation of R scripts. These will be available most, but not all,
weeks. (about 10 points)

• By submitting R scripts that solve the optional R homework problems (again

available most, but not all, weeks). (about 20 points)

• By doing a term project in R. (about 20 points)

To do the “graduate credit” grade calculation, we wlil add in your R bonus

points to the numerator of your score. To the denominator, we will add in 95%
of your bonus points or 50% of the possible bonus points, whichever is greater.
Earning a lot of R points is essential if you are registered for graduate credit. Oth-
erwise, earning more than half the bonus points is certain to raise your percentage
score a bit, and it can make a big difference if you have a bad day on a quiz or on
the final exam.

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Grades: Your course grade will be determined as follows:

• Problem sets, 50 points. Your worst score will be converted to a perfect

score.

• Optional participation

– volunteering to do seminar presentations, 10 points (1 per week)

– participation in class, based on attendance, preparation, contributions
to problem solving, and posting solutions to the Web site, 10 points.

• With proof logging

– presenting and listening to proofs, 26 points.

– two quizzes, 40 points each.
– final exam, slightly more than 60 points.

• Without proof logging

– uploading proofs to the Web site, 8 points.

– two quizzes, 45 points each.
– final exam, slightly more than 65 points.

• R bonus points, about 50 points in numerator, 25-45 points in denominator.

For graduate students, only a “graduate” percentage score, using the R bonus
points, will be calculated. For everyone else, we will also calculate an “undergrad-
uate” percentage score, ignoring the R bonus points, and we will use the higher of
the two percentage scores.
The grading scheme is as follows:

Points Grade
94.0% A
88.0% A-
80.0% B+
75.0% B
69.0% B-
63.0% C+
57.0% C
51.0% C-

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 If you are conscientious about the homework, proofs, and quizzes, you will end
up with a grade between B plus and A, depending on your expertise in taking
a fairly long and challenging 3-hour final exam, and you will know that you are
thoroughly prepared for more advanced courses. For better or worse, you need to
be fast as well as knowledgeable to get an A, but an A- is a reasonable goal even
if you make occasional careless errors and are not a speed demon. Students who
earned a B plus have been successful at getting into PhD programs.
There is no “curve” in this course! You cannot do worse because your classmates
do better.
YouTube videos

• The Lecture Preview Videos were made by Kate Penner. They cover the
so-called Executive Summaries in the weekly course materials, which go over
all the topics, but without proofs or detailed examples.
If you watch these videos (it takes about an hour per week) you will be very
well prepared for the lecture videos, and even the most difficult material will
make sense on a first hearing.

• The R script videos were made by Paul. They provide a line-by-line expla-
nation of the R scripts that accompany each week’s materials.
If you are doing the “graduate” option, these scripts are pretty much required
viewing, although the scripts are so thoroughly commented that just working
through them on your own is perhaps a viable alternative.
If you are doing just the “undergraduate” option, you can ignore the R scripts
completely.

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 Homework: Homework (typically 8 problems) is assigned weekly. The as-
signment is included in the same online document as the lecture notes and section
problems.
Assignments are due on Tuesdays by 11:59 PM. Submit a .pdf file to the As-
signments page on the course Web site. If you write your assignment with pencil
and paper, you will need access to a scanner that can create a single .pdf file from
all the pages.
Each week’s assignment will include a couple of optional problems whose solu-
tions require R scripts. These scripts should be uploaded electronically to the Web
site each week. Please include your name as a comment in the script and also in
the file name.
The course assistant who grades for your section should return your corrected
homework to you electronically within a week after the due date. If you are not
receiving graded homework on schedule, send email to Joe Palin and the problem
will be dealt with.
Homework that is submitted after 11:59 PM on the Tuesday when it is due will
not be graded. If it arrives before the final exam and looks fairly complete, you
will get a grade of 50% for it.

Collaboration and Academic Integrity policy:

You are encouraged to discuss the course with other students and with the
course staff, but you must always write your homework solutions out yourself in
your own words. You must write the names of those you’ve collaborated
with at the top of your assignment.
If you collaborate with classmates to solve problems that call for R scripts,
create your own file after your study group has figured out how to do it.
Proofs that you submit to the course Web site must be done without consulting
files that other students have posted!
If you have the opportunity to see a complete solution to an assigned problem,
please refrain from doing so. If you cannot resist the temptation, you must cite
the source, even if all that you do is check that your own answer is correct.
You are forbidden to upload solutions to homework problems, whether your
own or ones that are posted on the course Web site, to any publicly available
location on the Internet.
Anything that you learn from lecture, from the textbook, or from working
homework problems can be regarded as “common knowledge” for purposes of this
course, and the source need not be cited. Anything learned in prerequisite courses
falls into the same category. Do not assume that other courses use such an expan-
sive definition of “common knowledge”!

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Week-by-week Schedule:
Month Date Topic
Fortnight 1 August 31-Sept. 11 Fields, vectors and matrices
Week 2 September 14-20 Dot and cross products; Euclidean geometry of Rn
Week 3 September 21-27 Row reduction, independence, basis
Week 4 Sept. 28 - Oct. 4 Eigenvectors and eigenvalues
Week 5 October 5-11 Number systems and sequences
October 7-8 QUIZ 1 on weeks 1-4
Week 6 October 12-18 Series, convergence tests, power series
Week 7 October 19-25 Limits and continuity of functions
Week 8 October 26-Nov. 1 Derivatives, inverse functions, Taylor series
Week 9 November 2-8 Topology, sequences in Rn , linear differential equations
November 4-5 QUIZ 2 on weeks 5-8
Week 10 November 9-16 Limits and continuity in Rn ; partial and directional derivatives
Week 11 November 17-23 Differentiability, Newton’s method, inverse functions
Fortnight 12 Nov. 24-Dec. 6 Manifolds, critical points, Lagrange multipliers
November 23 Thanksgiving
December ?? FINAL EXAM on weeks 9-12

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