Category Archives: Announcements

READ Survey

Announcements

Hi everyone,

Check out the message below from Prof. Seto.  I encourage you all to take this survey, as this is one of the ways that the college makes decisions about its programs and needs.

“On behalf of READ, we would like to invite your students to participate in an online survey on college reading. This survey is discipline specific, with a drop down menu that includes your programs. The responses will help us learn more about how your students read/study in your programs and in which areas they need help.

You may share the link on Blackboard, through emails or your Openlab sites. 

Good luck with your studies!
Prof. Reitz

Update to the Final Exam Review

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Hi everyone,

After checking in with Prof. Thiell, I have revised the Final Exam review to eliminate the following problems:

  • Problem 18e
  • Problem 19ab
  • Problem 18c could be on the final, but I will not ask the final part (“find a formula for the inverse”)

Regards,
Prof. Reitz

ps. This was taken last Tuesday in Kolkata (Calcutta) at the Victoria Memorial, dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria and a reminder of India’s colonial history. India was once a British colony (like America), and achieved independence in 1947.IMG_7637

 

 

Group Paper draft Feedback

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Hi everyone,

I enjoyed reading the drafts of your papers very much – thanks!  I’ve sent feedback to each group, copying all group members, by email.  If you didn’t receive anything, please let me know and I’ll resend it (I used the email addresses that I pulled from cunyfirst at the beginning of the semester, but I’m not sure if they are all accurate).

If you have questions about any of my comments, please let me know.  As a reminder, your final draft is due in class on Thursday, December 3 (by email or hard copy).

Regards,
Prof. Reitz

Exam 3 Review notes

Announcements,

Hi everyone,

Two comments on the Exam 3 Review sheet:

  1.  In class, I proposed a strategy for solving problem #2, which was to break into cases based on the remainder when n was divided by 4.  While I believe this strategy will work, it is simpler to simply look at the cases “n is odd” and “n is even”.  Despite my comments in class, this method really will work (can anyone explain why?)
  2. It looks like the answer for problem #7 in the answer key was all wrong – I’m not sure what happened.  In any case, I’ve updated it, so it should now be correct.

Both of these corrections were due to a diligent student who will remain nameless (but, in fact, it was Irania – nice work!).

Let me know if you find anything else,

Prof. Reitz

Homework Chp 5 Update – problem #20

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Hi everyone,

Problem #20 in Chapter 5 uses an idea that we have *not* yet covered in class.  It is no longer a required problem – you don’t have to do it – but I will give you extra credit if you turn in a solution.  This is excellent practice in reading and applying a definition (just as we have been doing for the definitions of odd, even, divides, and so on).  The problem relies on a new definition, that of congruence mod n – it appears in the book as Definition 5.1 on page 105, but I will also give it here:

Definition.  Given integers a and b, and n \in \mathbb{N}, we say “a is congruent to b mod n”, or a \equiv b \pmod n, if
n | (b-a).

For example, if are told that x \equiv 7 \pmod 3, then we can conclude:
3|(7-x)  (by the definition of congruence), and
7-x = 3k for some integer k (by the definition of divides)

Hope this helps!  Please write back and let me know if you have any questions.

Best of luck,
Prof. Reitz