# Noah White

University of Califonia,
Los Angeles

# Math 3B: Calculus for life sciences students

## Warning: This is the website for an old course

This is the course website for Math 3B: Calculus for life sciences students running in Winter 2019. All information about homework, quizes and exams will be posted here.

The syllabus contains information on the official policies for collaboration on homework, late homework, grading and changing grades.

We will be using Campuswire for this class. See below for more information.

# Instructor, TAs and office hours

 Instructor: Noah White (noah@math.ucla.edu) Office hours: MS 6304, Monday, Friday 10-11am, Wednesday 2-3pm TA: Louis Esser (esserl@math.ucla.edu) Office hours: MS 2901, Thursday 11am-12pm Matthew Gherman (mgherman@math.ucla.edu) MS 2951, Wednesday 3-4 pm, Thursday 1-2 pm

Please check back here as office hours and locations may change.

# Communication

Due to the fact that I am teaching two classes this quarter I would appreciate your help managing communication for the class.

Mathematical questions should be asked on CampusWire (see below). In addition you should make use of my, and the TA’s, office hours. Administrative questions should in the first instance be directed to your TA. If your TA cannot resolve your query then you should contact me on CampusWire.

If you need to email me, the subject line must include the string math3b-w19. If not, then there is a good chance your email will slip through the cracks and remain unanswered.

# Textbook

S. J. Schreiber, Calculus for the Life Sciences, Wiley

Owning a copy of the textbook will be very helpful and is recommended however you might not find it necessary. I will post links to other sources here as time goes on. We will not be using WileyPlus so feel free to buy an old or used copy of the textbook - any edition is fine.

Geogebra app for slope fields

Geogebra app for Riemann sums

Geogebra app for Eulers method

# Problem sets, homework and quizzes

There will be a problem set assigned every week. These will not be collected however it is strongly recommended that you complete it over the course of the quarter.

Every second week (as indicated in the class schedule below) a small number questions from the problem set will be assigned as homework and collected and graded.

In weeks where no homework is collected a short quiz will be conducted in the discussion sessions. Questions on the quiz will be drawn from the problem set (or will be very similar to one of these questions). The lowest 4 scores out of all homeworks and quizzes will be dropped. The homework and quizzes will count for a total of 10% of your grade.

# Lecture notes

Here you will find links to the lecture notes and slides as they become available. They represent more or less what we covered in lectures but not exactly, depending on how many questions I got and if we ran out of time. Most of the examples we do in class will not be in the lecture notes.

In addition, the lectures will be recorded and videos will be available on BruinCast (subject to my request being approved). I do not control the recordings, so any issue regarding unavailable videos or quality issues should be directed to the BruinCast team.

• Lecture 1: Review and limits and differentiation.
• Lecture 2: Introduction to graphing.
• Lecture 3: More graphing and slanted asymptotes.
• Lecture 4: Optimization, maximums and minimums.
• Lecture 5: More optimization examples.
• Lecture 6: More optimization examples.
• Lecture 7: Antiderivatives and slope fields. Integration by substitution.
• Lecture 8: Integration by parts and review.
• Lecture 9: The area under a curve and the integral. The fundamental theorem of calculus.
• Lecture 10: Riemann sums and the fundamental theorem of calculus.
• Lecture 11: Accumulated change using Riemann sums.
• Lecture 12: More accumulated change.
• Lecture 13: More accumulated change and Long division and partial fractions.
• Lecture 14: Long division and partial fractions.
• Lecture 15: More partial fractions and differential equations.
• Lecture 16: Modelling using differential equations.
• Lecture 17: Separation of variables and linear models.
• Lecture 18: Linear models and Review.
• Lecture 19: More linear models and slope fields.
• Lecture 20: Eulers method.
• Lecture 21: Autonomous systems and phase lines.
• Lecture 22: More Phase lines
• Lecture 23: Bifurcation diagrams.

# Exams

There will be two midterms and a final exam.

• Midterm 1: 8-8:50am Monday, 28 January, 2019
• Midterm 2: 8-8:50am Monday, 25 February, 2019
• Final Exam: 3-6pm Monday, 18 March, 2019

Cheatsheets: For each exam, students may bring a cheat sheet. Each student must prepare their own handwritten cheat sheet. For the midterms, the cheat sheet may consist of one side of half a standard (A4 or letter) sheet of paper (i.e. A5 or letter folded in half lengthways). For the final, the cheat sheet may consist of one side of a standard sheet of paper. Cheatsheets that do not meet these requirements will be confiscated at the beginning of the exam.

Calculators: You may use a non-programmable, non-graphing and non-integration calculator in exams. Calculators not meeting this specification will be confiscated.

Study: Here I will post some practice exams which might aid your study.

Your final grade will be calculated using the maximum of the following two grading schemes. Your letter grade will then be determined by your rank in the class. Unless something very out of the ordinary occurs I expect to give approximately 20-35% A’s and 55-65% A’s and B’s combined.

Option 1:

10% (6 best homework/quiz scores) +
40% (combined midterm scores) +
50% (final exam score)


Option 2:

10% (6 best homework/quiz scores) +
30% (best midterm score) +
60% (final exam score)


Effectively, this will mean that unless you score worse in the final than both midterms, your lowest midterm score will be dropped. This also means missing one midterm probably will not impact your grade in any serious way.

# Schedule

This is a tentative schedule. Apart from the dates of exams, it may change. Numbers refer to sections of the textbook.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
1. 1/71
Intro/4.1
1/8
Quiz 1
1/92
4.1
1/10
Quiz 1
1/113
4.2
2. 1/144
4.3-4
1/15
1/165
5.1
1/17
1/186
5.2 HW 1
3. MLK Day
(no class)
1/22
Quiz 2
1/237
5.3
1/24
Quiz 2
1/258
Review
4. 1/28
Midterm 1
1/29
1/309
5.4
1/31
2/110
5.4 HW 2
5. 2/411
5.5
2/5
Quiz 3
2/612
5.5
2/7
Quiz 3
2/813
5.6
6. 2/1114
5.8
2/12
2/1315
6.1
2/14
2/1516
6.2 HW 3
7. Pres Day
(no class)
2/19
Quiz 4
2/2017
6.2
2/21
Quiz 4
2/2218
Review
8. 2/25
Midterm 2
2/26
2/2719
6.3
2/28
3/120
6.4 HW 4
9. 4/421
6.5
4/5
Quiz 5
4/622
6.5
4/7
Quiz 5
4/823
6.6
10. 4/1124
6.6 HW 5
4/12
4/1325
Review
4/14
4/1526
Review

# Campuswire

Campuswire is a question and answer style forum which we will be using for this class. You can sign up for the class using the link and the code: 1169.

You can ask questions, either as yourself or anonymously. I highly encourage you to also try answering others’ questions. Teaching others is by far the most effective way to learn and solidify what you already know. The TAs and I will monitor the discussion and answer questions occasionally.

Obviously homework questions and solutions should not be posted on Campuswire, though feel free to ask for hints etc.