cheese

HW 5 / hw solutions / cran-apple

Eyyy so your last homework assignment is posted. Sad stuff, I know. I also posted solutions to the homework you handed in yesterday. Also don’t forget I posted the Fundamental Theorem of Linear Algebra the other day. That is the real dope good stuff.

I am thinking about having extra office hours Friday from 12-2 and/or Tuesday 11-1 or 3-5 (in addition to my Wednesday 11-1 hours). Let me know which of those you’d attend/prefer.

So last week you didn’t get much of an email. I know you were sad. Maybe I was coasting a little after that quality Ninja Turtles/Rennaissance artists discussion. Maybe I was nervous I couldn’t come with anything to live up to the comparison of the butts of a Donatello statue and a pop idol. But that’s no way to live. As Robert Browning wrote, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / or what’s a heaven for?” (That’s from “Andrea del Sarto” — incidentally, I want to write an essay comparing Robert Browning and the Notorious B.I.G., but that’s not for tonight. Hopefully I get around to it before our course is done.)
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Exam 1 / cheese thoughts

Your first exam will occur in class on Tuesday, 4 March 2014. It will cover all the material we’ve done from chapters 1 and 2, including material from today’s lecture. Next week I will start chapter 3 material, which will not appear on your first exam. I will also review on Thursday the topics that will be on exam one.

Don’t forget your homework 3 is due tomorrow in class. Also, the solutions are posted for the previous homeworks, in case you’ve not noticed.

For the past five weeks or so I’ve had manchego cheese with membrillo (quince paste) almost every day after dinner as part of my nightly cheese plate. It’s a classic Spanish pairing, and the treble is completed with a bottle of Rioja. It’s one of Spain’s greatest accomplishments, right up there with Velázquez’s Las Meninas, the recent edition of La Furia Roja, and Penélope Cruz.

cheese

I’ve also been eating a lot of aged Gouda because East Village Cheese sells it for $9/lb and it’s delicious. East Village Cheese is a great store because their cheese is super cheap. However, the quality is admittedly hit-or-miss. For instance, I bought some Comté at $14/lb, which would be an amazing deal for good Comté, but it was a huge disappointment. But there’s nowhere else you can get taleggio and Saint Andre for $4/lb. And this Gouda is as almost good as what they have at Murray’s (the premier cheesemonger in New York City), where it’s often twice as expensive.

gouda

“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”

HW 7 Corrections

Some vigilant students have pointed out a couple of errors in the homework 7 assignment, in problems 2(b) and 5. The statement to prove in problem 2(b) was incomplete, and there was a missing ‘x’ in the first term of the third equation in problem 5. The assignment has been updated with a corrected version

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Today’s cheese is Mt. Tam, which is awfully tasty with a nutty raisin bread. It’s an American classic from Cowgirl Creamery in California.
  

HW 7 posted in full

It’s up, y’all. Due this coming Wednesday.

Celebrate by eating some Brillat-Savarin cheese, which is a very rich triple-cream named after one of my personal heroes, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who is responsible for the quotation “You are what you eat”, though what he said was actually “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are” (well, he wrote it, and in French it was “Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es”, but you get the idea). He also said “A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye”. But seriously, you should eat cheese for dessert. Just make sure to take it out an hour or two before you eat it so it gets to room temperature. 
Here’s a handy guide to pronouncing the names of some famous mathematicians:
 

HW 7 / documents / treasure chests

Hello students,

I’ve added new lecture notes in the Documents tab. The homework 6 solutions are also available. I’ve posted part of homework 7 in the Assignments tab, in case you want to get started. Tonight I will update the file to include the rest of the assignment.
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If you’re scared of theoretical linear algebra, try sleeping with a night light. Just remember that running away from the problem won’t do any good. Even in its wildest moments, this subject is conquerable. 
This post brought to you by Jessie Ware, for some stupid reason. 
Locatelli pecorino romano cheese is the best cheese to put on pasta. Even better than parmigiano-reggiano. For real tho.
 

Update to HW 6 / Lecture notes posted

– I’ve updated the homework 6 assignment. Problem 8 will be part of next week’s assignment, and I’ve added a problem to this week’s assignment.

– I’ve also posted my notes for the past couple of lectures. They include material that will be covered on Wednesday. 
– Sorry I didn’t have the exams today; I forgot to get them from my office on Friday. You can come get yours tomorrow during office hours, and I’ll bring the rest to class on Wednesday.
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Époisses is a very stinky cheese. You can’t get real Époisses in the US because raw-milk cheese that’s aged less than two months is illegal. It’s a real bummer. The pasteurized version is okay, though.
 

Exam 1 will be Wednesday the 25th of September, in class

As announced in class today, the first exam will take place on Wednesday, 25 September 2013, during the usual class time (8:30am) in the usual classroom (Humanities 1003). The test will cover all material from the beginning of the year up to and including today’s (Wednesday, 18 September) lecture. You will be tested on concepts as well as techniques, so make sure you understand the ‘why’ of everything, not just the ‘how’.

What we’ve done:
– Mathematical induction
– Transpose of a matrix, symmetric matrices
– Section 1.2 (systems of linear equations)
– Section 1.3 (Markov chains, dynamic models)
– Section 1.4 (linear programming, over- and underdetermined systems)
– Section 2.1 (matrices, vectors)
– Section 2.2 (matrix multiplication)
– Section 2.4 (matrix algebra)
– Section 2.5 (norms and bounds, eigenvalues and eigenvectors)
There is no homework this week.
If you’re nervous about the test, just think about how nice-looking cooked mushrooms can be:
shroomin
And check out that cheese!
cheeese
Feeling better, right?
Unrelated to the exam: wheat scenes from Love and Death can be found here and here