Week 9: Applications of the derivative

Welcome back from reading week! I hope it gave you a chance to get caught up, and to recharge for the second half of the semester.

This half of the term features:

  • 2 more weeks of calculus
  • 2 weeks of probability
  • 3 weeks of graph theory

...and then it's over! 🏖

What can you do with a derivative?

So many things! 😎 But we only have one week, so I've chosen three for us to look at:

  1. More optimization. We saw a bit of this before reading week, but we'll look at more this week, e.g. what is the perfect size for a moose? The mathematical manipulations required here are almost an afterthought, it's the translation from English that is the challenge.
  2. Modelling system dynamics in phase space 🛸, aka drawing swirly pictures out of little arrows ↬⤳⤻.
  3. Testing the solutions to differential equations.

I think it's a light week. There are only 14 resources and 127 minutes of pencasts compared to Week 6's 32 resources and 230 minutes of pencasts.

Friday is the last day to withdraw without academic penalty!

If you are still in the course next Monday you will receive a final grade in it.
That grade will appear on your transcript.
Make sure it will be one you can live with!
If not, withdrawing may be your best course of action. #dodgethatbullet

(If you are registered in Math 120 that is. If you are registered in ALES 291 you have until April 9 to withdraw, but it's really not in your interest to wait that long to make the decision.)

How to withdraw

If you are on campus you can go to the admission's desk and withdraw in person.

If you are not on campus you can withdraw by emailing admissions at admissions@yukonu.ca, and including your name, student ID, and the course name you want to withdraw from. Katie Aitken adds: "You can also suggest that they cc their program advisor (for most students, this would be me, kaitken@yukonu.ca, but it seems there are a few in there from other programs)".

Office hours like always

I'll be in my Zoom "office" Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week from 10:30 am to 11:30 am. Come on by if you have questions.

That's all for now!

Take care,
Tim

"Mathematical science is the language of the unseen relations between things." — Ada Lovelace
Any guess what this is the pattern of?