Welcome to Linear Algebra!

Among other things make sure you actually read the somewhat lengthy course syllabus. Announcements, especially regarding things like term test information will be posted below. As well, there is a calendar you can view below.

Announcements

  • April 4: Loads of True/False questions have been added to the extra problems.
  • April 2: Prof Hoell will hold a review session on Friday, April 6, in BA1130 from 3-5PM.
  • April 2: The tests always say on the front not to remove any pages from the exam booklet, but unfortunately many students still remove the extra pages in the back of the booklet. For the final exam we will deduct 10 points from your exam if you remove pages from the booklet. Unfortunately, I don't know of another way to make sure people follow the directions.
  • April 2: Here is a list of topics considered fair game for the upcoming final exam.
  • April 2: Here is a study guide written by former MAT223 prof Leung for last semester's final exam prep.
  • April 2 Here is a Practice Final. There are a number of things you need to keep in mind. Among these you should not take the difficulty or style of the practice test as any kind of guarantee of difficulty/style of the actual test. The practice test was written before the actual test, so the actual test is, well, a different sort of animal. As before:

    No, I will not be posting solutions to the practice test. You should be able to work out, after have taken it, what the correct answers ought to be. If not, that's why we have tutorials, office hours, piazza etc etc.

    You only get one shot at a practice final, so if you blow off my well-intended instructions and don't do well on the actual test don't say you weren't advised to do otherwise. If it were me, I'd follow the instructions.
  • March 26: I updated yesterday's list of hard problems.
  • March 25: Here are some extra problems to give you more practice in preparation for the final exam.
  • March 24: Next week's quiz will cover the Fundamental Theorem of Linear Algebra.
  • March 16: Next week's quiz will cover material on orthogonal complements. This material is discussed in your new TopHat homework.
  • March 16: A new TopHat assignment is up. It is due March 25.
  • March 16 Here are answers for test 2.
  • March 14: Next Wednesday and Friday classes in LEC0101 will begin at 8:45 rather than 9:10 to make up for a missed lecture.
  • March 12: This week's quiz will cover subspaces.
  • March 4: The old version of topics list incorrectly gave the date of the midterm as March 17 rather than March 9. This has been corrected. This week's quiz will test on matrix multiplication and inverses.
  • March 2: Here is a list of TOPICS to help you prepare for the upcoming midterm.
  • March 1: Here is a Practice Midterm. There are a number of things you need to keep in mind. Among these you should not take the difficulty or style of the practice test as any kind of guarantee of smilar difficulty/style of the actual test. The practice test is, well, a different sort of animal altogether from the actual test. That said, I still believe that this will give you excellent practice. Some other things to consider:

    You only get one shot at a practice midterm so strongly suggest you do as the instructions indicate and simulate the test environment as well as possible. It is a "dry run" and if you don't use it as such you'll not be getting the most out of it.

    No, I will not be posting solutions to the practice test. You should be able to work out, after have taken it, what the correct answers ought to be. If not, that's why we have tutorials, office hours, piazza etc etc.

    No, I will not be discussing previous years exams, or solutions, or whatever.

    Not listening to the above, and especially, any hint of complaint that the actual test wasn't well represented by the practice test, are near certain to result in my never posting this kind of thing again.

  • March 1: ***MIDTERM INFO***The midterm ROOM LIST is now up. Look it over.
    There is an alternate seating available also on Friday, March 9 from 3:10-4PM. The only way you can write in the alternate seating is by doing the following.
    1. Send me an email by 11:59PM March 5 containing a screenshot (or pdf) from your ROSI/ACORN where your name and student number are visible and clearly show a regularly scheduled class or lab at University of Toronto which overlaps with the midterm. If you send me such an email on October 3, you won't be seated in the alternate seating. Your email must contain the words "MAT223 Test Conflict" in the subject line.
    2. If in fact it is a course conflict, I'll give you the location for the alternate seating.
    As discussed on the website having other midterms that day (with times not overlapping ours) does *not* count as a conflict allowing you access to the alternate seating. Moreover, as discussed, there is no makeup midterm.
  • March 1: There is a new TopHat assignment due on March 11 at 12PM.
  • February 24 This week the quiz will cover transformations.
  • February 20: There are no lectures or tutorials this week.
  • February 12: There is a correction! Next quiz will cover material on vector projections rather than on transformations.
  • February 9: Next quiz will cover material on transformations, i.e. 1.8/1.9
  • February 8: Here are solutions for test 1.
  • February 5: Next quiz will cover material on linear independence i.e. 1.7
  • January 26: Next quiz will cover material on solvability, i.e. 1/4/1.5
  • January 23: ***MIDTERM INFO***The midterm ROOM LIST is now up. Look it over.
    There is an alternate seating available also on Friday, February 2 from 3:10-4PM. The only way you can write in the alternate seating is by doing the following.
    1. Send me an email by January 28 containing a screenshot (or pdf) from your ROSI/ACORN where your name and student number are visible and clearly show a regularly scheduled class or lab at University of Toronto which overlaps with the midterm. If you send me such an email on January 29, you won't be seated in the alternate seating. Your email must contain the words "MAT223 Test Conflict" in the subject line.
    2. If in fact it is a course conflict, I'll give you the location for the alternate seating.
    As discussed on the website and countless times in lecture, having other midterms that day (with times not overlapping ours) does *not* count as a conflict allowing you access to the alternate seating. Moreover, as discussed, there is no makeup midterm.
  • January 23: Here is a list of TOPICS we may pull questions from for the upcoming midterm. Basically everything we've covered in lectures up to and including the end of Section 1.5 and the orthogonality notes is considered fair game.
  • January 23: Against my better judgment, here is a Practice Midterm. There are a number of things you need to keep in mind. Among these you should not take the difficulty or style of the practice test as any kind of guarantee of smilar difficulty/style of the actual test. The practice test was written far in advance of the actual test, so the actual test is, well, a different sort of animal altogether. That said, I still believe that this will give you excellent practice. Some other things to consider:

    No, I will not be posting solutions to the practice test. You should be able to work out, after have taken it, what the correct answers ought to be. If not, that's why we have tutorials, office hours, piazza etc etc.

    Not listening to the above, and especially, any hint of complaint that the actual test wasn't well represented by the practice test, are near certain to result in my never posting this kind of thing again.

  • January 23: A new TopHat assignment is up due on January 30.
  • January 14: A new TopHat assignment is up.
  • January 14: This week's quiz will focus on the basic of systems of linear equations and augmented matrices.
  • January 10: Students in prof Siefken's 0301 section should also be aware of the class materials available here.
  • January 4: TopHat seems to have fixed the pricing bug and the text is now available. Go to https://app.tophat.com/e/159636 to purchase the text. The text is available for just under $40 after taxes. If you have problems require assistance with Top Hat at any time or cannot see the price as described, they require specific user information to troubleshoot these issues so you can contact their Support Team directly by way of email (support@ tophat.com), the in app support button, or by calling 1-888-663-5491.
  • January 4: Your first TopHat assignment is now available. It is due on January 13th, 12PM.
  • January 2: Those in LEC0101 be aware that you will not have lecture on Friday, January 5. Instead your first class will be held on the morning of January 8.
  • January 1: As mentioned in the syllabus, for this class we use Blackboard Groups for the tutorials. This means, as it says in the syllabus, you have to self-enroll in a tutorial Group on Blackboard. It does not matter what it says on ACORN/ROSI, if you are not self-enrolled in a Blackboard Group we cannot enter marks for your quizzes once the tutorials begin. I have recently created the Blackboard Groups and you should now add yourself to the group you wish to be in based on your selection from when you registered. Blackboard and ACORN/ROSI do not sync automatically and therefore even if you've already registered on ACORN/ROSI you must still sign up in Blackboard. To do this you'll have to go to Tools and you'll see a UT Groups self sign-up tool and use it. You should sign up for the Group in which you registered through ACORN/ROSI. The instructors and TAs will not do this for you. I would do this right now otherwise you may forget later.
  • January 1: This term we will be using Piazza for class discussion. It is now active so please enroll. I encourage you to post your questions on Piazza. If you have any problems or feedback for the developers, email team@piazza.com. Find our class page at: https://piazza.com/class/jb73rpow2wl594?cid=4#
  • December 25: PLEASE READ this important remark about the calendar below. Google calendars has a quasi-infamous bug which affects time zones. I have tried very hard to deal with the calendar listed on the bottom of this page to ensure that the listed times don't vary based on the individual visiting the site. At this point I have invested far more hours than I care to admit trying to debug this, so that students will always see an accurate time when they view the calendar. I've discovered that I still have not resolved the issue. So I have some thoughts/solutions.
    • On the one hand, I could solve everything by not having the calendar at all. No calendar = no confusion.
    • On the other hand, the students/instructors for whom the display is in the wrong time zone are far from the majority. To most users, the feature is quite helpful and gives a lot of information in a short amount of time on events happening at any given time.
    • I decided therefore to keep the calendar but augment it with a calibration. Namely, there is an event, on every Monday which says it should read 12PM on that Monday. If you see the listed event being listed on your viewing computer/device as not being on Monday at 12PM then it is YOUR responsibility to factor that into all listed times. For example, if the event marked "This time should read 12PM" appears on your device to take place at 1PM, this means all events you see must be adjusted accordingly (i.e. 1 hour previous). I take no responsibility for you not heeding this warning.

Course Coordinator

Nicholas Hoell is coordinator for MAT223 and instructors for lecture sections 0201 and 0301.

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Motivation

"This is how scientists view the world." In this course we'll begin you on the long process of helping you translate the symbology appearing in the cartoon.