Math 131P Homepage, Autumn 2012

Partial Differential Equations I

Instructor: András Vasy

Office: 383M

Phone: 723-2226

E-mail: andras "at" math.stanford.edu

Office hours: First week, tentative: T 2:15-3:45, F 2-3:30. From second week, tentative: M 2-3, T 2:15-3:15, F 10-11. Exception: No office hour on Monday, Nov 12. Instead, extra office hour on Thursday, November 8, 2:15-3:15pm (after class).

Office hour on Friday, December 7, is moved to Thursday, December 6, 2:15-3:15pm (after class). On finals week, there will be office hours on Tuesday, December 11, 2:15-3:15pm (standard time) as well as Wednesday, December 12, 11am-noon (morning of the final exam), but not on Monday, December 10.

Class location: TTh 12:50-2:05pm, Building 380-380C.

Course assistant: Alessandro Carlotto.

Office: 380J

E-mail: carlotto "at" math.stanford.edu

Office hours: First week: MWF 1:10-2:10, T 11-12:30, F5-6. Second week: MWF 1:10-2:10, Th 5-8. Third week onwards MWF 1:10-2:10, T 11-12, Th 5-7.

Office hours during finals week: Monday (Dec 10) and Tuesday (Dec 11), 1:10-2:10pm.

Textbook: `Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers' by Stanley Farlow.

The running syllabus will be here.

Grading policy: The grade will be based on the weekly homework (25%), on the in-class midterm exam (30%) and on the in-class (i.e. not take-home, to take place during finals week, as designated by the registrar) final exam (45%).

The homework will be due in class or in the instructor's mailbox by 9pm on the designated day, which will usually (but not always) be Wednesdays. You are allowed to discuss the homework with others in the class, but you must write up your homework solution by yourself. Thus, you should understand the solution, and be able to reproduce it yourself. This ensures that, apart from satisfying a requirement for this class, you can solve the similar problems that are likely to arise on the exams.

The registrar has now confirmed that the final exam will be on Wednesday, December 12, 7-9pm in 380-380C. The exam will be two hours long.

There is a practice exam with solutions, without the sketches, which are not yet properly proofread.

The exam has been graded!

The mean was 85 points out of 125; the median was 88. Similarly to the midterm, there is no grade for the final -- the course grade, as described above, has a number of components, and it is the actual scores that count. To give you an idea what your score corresponds to, i.e. what your course grade might be if you do similarly on the midterm and on the homeworks (similarly does not mean that you have a similar percentage of the maximum score, e.g. on the homeworks the expectations are much higher since you have a lot more time to do them and since you can talk to others), here are some rough ranges:

The midterm is in-class on Thursday, October 25.

Solutions are provided.

The exam has been graded!

There was a rather broad distribution of scores. The mean was 72 points out of 100; the median was 73. There is no grade for the midterm -- the course grade, as described above, has a number of components, and it is the actual scores that count. To give you an idea what your score corresponds to, i.e. what your course grade might be if you do similarly on the final and on the homeworks (similarly does not mean that you have a similar percentage of the maximum score, e.g. on the homeworks the expectations are much higher since you have a lot more time to do them and since you can talk to others), here are some rough ranges:

The exam is 75 minutes, and covers Lessons 1-13. Please arrive a few minutes early so that we can start on time. You will be asked to write the first two problems in blue book no. 1, the rest in blue book no. 2, to facilitate the grading. The exam is closed book, notes, computers, etc. A table of transforms from the back of the book will be provided.

To prepare for the exam, first read through the book and lecture notes, then go through the problem sets, and finally attempt the practice exam.

There is a practice midterm with solutions.

Problem Sets