MATH 4310 – Linear Algebra

Spring 2022
001 MWF 12:25-1:15, RCK 103
002 MWF 1:30-2:20, RCK 105

Instructors

Marie MacDonald James Hyde

Lecture 001 Lecture 002
mb2636@cornell.edu jth263@cornell.edu
Malott 227 Malott 590

The information in the syllabus might have to change throughout the semester, we will
communicate any changes through Canvas notifications. If you have any issues with course
policies, please inform the teaching team as soon as you can, so we can be more successful
in accommodating.

Tentative Office Hours: Marie MacDonald: M 2:00-3:00, T 2:30-3:30 (always on zoom),

W 10:30-11:30, W 3:30-4:30 and other times by appointment. James Hyde: M 2:35-5:00,
T 10:00-12:00 (always on zoom), W 2:35-5:00 and R 10:00-12:00 (always on zoom). Note
that all office hours are open to all students.

Teaching Assistants
Hannah Keese (hrk49@cornell.edu)
Alekos Robotis (ar2377@cornell.edu)

Course Description: Linear algebra is a major component in the foundation of many

areas of modern mathematics, and has applications across the social and physical sciences
and in engineering. You have seen in calculus how to use the derivative to approximate a
differentiable function with a linear one. In linear algebra, we analyze linear functions and
study their applications.

This may be the first 4000–level course for some of you. The biggest difference you will
find between this and a 3000–level course is that we will not begin with an introduction
to proofs, I assume that you have some familiarity with proofs. I expect careful attention
to detail on your part. You should stop me in class if you do not understand something I
have explained. Finally, you should spend significant time making sure that your homework
solutions are clear and well written.

Prerequisite:MATH 2210, 2230, 2310, or 2940. Students will be expected to be comfort-

able with proofs. Undergraduates who plan to attend graduate school in mathematics should
take MATH 4330 instead of MATH 4310.

Forbidden Overlap: Due to an overlap in content, students will receive credit for only

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one course in the following group: MATH 4310, MATH 4315, MATH 4330.

Textbook: Axler,Linear algebra done right. Third edition. Undergraduate Texts in Math-
ematics. Springer- Verlag, New York, 2015. Available online for free through the library
catalogue. (You may use an online or physical copy.)

There are many other good linear algebra resources out there. Whenever you feel stuck
or confused with our text, please feel free to consult alternative treatments. Reading multi-
ple accounts of one topic is often helpful. Some other texts you might consult include:
(1) Advanced Linear Algebra, Second Edition, by Bruce Cooperstein.
(2) Friedberg, Insel and Spence, Linear algebra. Fourth edition. Prentice Hall, Inc., Upper
Saddle River, NJ, 2003.
(3) Hoffman and Kunze, Linear algebra. Second edition Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood
Cliffs, N.J. 1971.
Warning: There will be some correlation between our text and the lectures, but we will
cover material that is not in the book, and we may do some things differently. What matters
for the exams is what material is covered in lectures and in the homework!

Course Webpage: Canvas.

Grade Distribution:
• Homework: 30%;

• Prelim 1: 15%;

• Prelim 2: 15%;

• Video: 5%;

• Project: 5%;

• Final: 30%.
Homework:
• There will be 11 homework sets posted on Canvas at least one week before their due
date and are to be turned in on Gradescope by 11:00pm on Wednesday. The work you
hand in should represent your own efforts and understanding. Don’t risk an academic
integrity violation by handing in copied solutions.
• Late problem sets will be accepted up to 48 hours after the due date with penalty as
indicated on each problem set.
• Also note that any work you submit is a document that another person has to read,
and the teaching team is not obliged to read unreasonably messy or disorganized sub-
missions.

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 • Your worst two homework grades will be dropped from your final grade calculation, to
account for unexpected situation, do not email the instructor or TAs about late/missed/incomplete
homework. Please plan carefully and save your “drop” for illness or emergencies.

Prelims and Final:

• Prelims will be held in class on 02/23 and 03/30, details about the material covered
will be given to you at least a week in advance.
• The final will be scheduled at a later day by the registrar’s office.
• Sickness on the day of a test: if you are very ill or have a serious emergency on the
day of a test, you should contact your instructor at least two hours before the starting
time. (You risk getting an ‘F’ on a test if you miss the test for any reason and then try
to explain later.)

Videos and Project: Details about these will be posted to Canvas.

Support:
Your instructors and teaching assistant(s) are available for consultation during their office
hours.

The Math Support Center also offers free one-on-one tutoring for 1000-2000 level classes,
some tutors might be capable of assisting you with this course, it is also a great place to
meet others working on similar math problems.

Policies:
• Inclusivity Statement
– We, as human beings and the instructing team for this course, are committed to
full inclusion in education for all persons. We will find time to meet with you
individually to talk about anything that we can do to help your learning experi-
ence in this course and at Cornell. Please feel free to let anyone from the teaching
team know if there are circumstances affecting your ability to participate. We
understand that our students represent a rich variety of backgrounds and perspec-
tives. The mathematics department is committed to providing an atmosphere for
learning that respects diversity, as well as the instructing team for this course,
are committed to full inclusion in education for all persons. Please feel free to
let anyone from the teaching team know if there are circumstances affecting your
ability to participate.
• Diversity Outcomes In addition to learning the calculus topics listed in the course
description, more general learning outcomes of this course are:
– Students will be capable of explaining and discussing their own work with fellow
students.

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 – Students will acknowledge that there are various correct solutions to a math prob-
lem, and being capable of using different problem-solving strategies.
– Students will demonstrate the capability to work independently and in cooperation
across differences (e.g. cultural, social, personal, economic, values, religious).
• Accessibility Services
– Cornell University is committed to ensuring access to learning opportunities for
all students. Student Disability Services (SDS) is the campus office that collab-
orates with students who have disabilities to provide and/or arrange reasonable
accommodations.
– If you are registered with SDS and have a faculty notification letter dated for this
semester, please contact me early in the semester to review how the accommoda-
tions will be applied in the course. If you have an immediate access need, please
see me after class.
– If you have, or think you have, a disability in any area such as, mental health,
attention, learning, chronic health, sensory, or physical, please contact the SDS
office to arrange a confidential discussion regarding equitable access and reasonable
accommodations.
– Students with short-term disabilities, such as a broken arm, can often work with
instructors to minimize classroom barriers. In situations where additional assis-
tance is needed, students should contact the SDS as noted above.
– If you are registered with SDS and have questions or concerns about your accom-
modations please contact your SDS Counselor.
• Academic Integrity
– Cornell’s code of academic integrity applies to this and all other courses.
– In particular, academic misconduct of any kind will result in academic integrity
report, as well as a grade penalty which could be of a failing grade in the course.
– You may collaborate with other students on homework, indeed you are encouraged
to do so. However, for maximum benefit, you should try hard to do all the problems
yourself before consulting others. What you turn in should be your own account
expressed in your own words. Copying someone else’s homework and presenting
it as your own will be treated as a violation of Cornell’s Academic Integrity Code,
as will copying solutions that you might find on the internet or elsewhere.
– Regret Clause. If you commit some act that is not reasonable on an assessment
but bring it to the attention of an instructor within 72 hours, the penalty for
doing such will be reduced to at most a zero on that assessment. Due to university
regulations a primary hearing must still be held when using the regret clause.
Tentative Course Schedule:

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Week of Topics (textbook chapter)
Jan24 Fields and Modular Arithmetic (1)

Jan31 Vector Spaces (1)

Feb07 Vector Spaces (2)

Feb14 Infinite Vector Spaces, Linear Maps (3)

Feb21 Linear Maps (3), Prelim 1

Feb28 Matrices (3)

Mar07 Matrix Actions (3)

Mar14 Polynomials (4)

Mar21 Eigenvalues & Eigenvectors (5)

Mar28 Inner Products (6), Prelim 2

Apr04 Spring Break
Apr11 Orthonormal & Orthogonal (6)
Apr18 Operators (7)
Apr25 Singular Value Decomposition (7)
May02 Canonical Forms (8)