06-240/Homework Assignment 10

06-240/Navigation Panel   # Week of... Notes and Links 1 Sep 11 About, Tue, HW1, Putnam, Thu 2 Sep 18 Tue, HW2, Thu 3 Sep 25 Tue, HW3, Photo, Thu 4 Oct 2 Tue, HW4, Thu 5 Oct 9 Tue, HW5, Thu 6 Oct 16 Why?, Iso, Tue, Thu 7 Oct 23 Term Test, Thu (double) 8 Oct 30 Tue, HW6, Thu 9 Nov 6 Tue, HW7, Thu 10 Nov 13 Tue, HW8, Thu 11 Nov 20 Tue, HW9, Thu 12 Nov 27 Tue, HW10, Thu 13 Dec 4 On the final, Tue, Thu F Dec 11 Final: Dec 13 2-5PM at BN3, Exam Forum Register of Good Deeds Add your name / see who's in! edit the panel

In Preparation

Read sections 5.1, 5.2 and (back to the past!) 2.5 in our textbook. Remember that reading math isn't like reading a novel! If you read a novel and miss a few details most likely you'll still understand the novel. But if you miss a few details in a math text, often you'll miss everything that follows. So reading math takes reading and rereading and rerereading and a lot of thought about what you've read.

Solve problems 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 14 and 17 on pages 256-259 but submit only your solutions of problems 3a, 3b, 11 and 17. This assignment is due at the tutorials on Thursday December 7.

Just for fun. A bit of history of determinants, which I learned from Wikipedia via Michael Dzamba:

Historically, determinants were considered before matrices. Originally, a determinant was defined as a property of a system of linear equations. The determinant "determines" whether the system has a unique solution (which occurs precisely if the determinant is non-zero). In this sense, two-by-two determinants were considered by Cardano at the end of the 16th century and larger ones by Leibniz about 100 years later. Following him Cramer (1750) added to the theory, treating the subject in relation to sets of equations. The recurrent law was first announced by Bezout (1764).

Read more here!