Category: Announcements (Page 2 of 3)

The set Second Order Equations-Constant Coefficient Homogeneous Basic has been reopened and is now due this upcoming Monday, March 20.

If you didn’t get a chance to complete this set last week, now’s a good time to catch up. The three sets that go with Section 5.2 of the textbook are:

1. Second Order Equations-Constant Coefficient Homogeneous Basic,
2. Second Order Equations-Constant Coefficient Homogeneous Repeated,
3. Second Order Equations-Constant Coefficient Homogeneous Complex.

They align with each of the three cases we saw in class, depending on the nature of the roots of the characteristic polynomial (real and distinct, real and repeated, or complex conjugates).

You can use the summary we developed and wrote on the board at the beginning of Thursday’s class or you can derive the formulas yourself. Once you understand how the nature of the roots determines how to build your fundamental set of solutions $\{y_1, y_2\}$ (sometimes called “basic solutions” in WeBWorK), you’ll find you can answer these questions pretty quickly.

The reason I’ve reopened the basic set is that three sets together serve as building blocks for Sections 5.3 and 5.4. They’re pretty easy and you’ll find that what you do for these problems will be the first step in solving the equations on the upcoming set Second Order Equations-Nonhomogeneous Linear. So I want everyone to earn as close to 100% on these three sets as possible.

Please make sure your classmates are aware that this set has been reopened and good luck!

In student office hours today, we noticed some details about a few WeBWorK questions.

1. If you are entering your answer as a decimal and WeBWorK is not accepting it, try entering more decimal places.
2. In the set Introduction-Basic Concepts, Problem 1 has you read from a graph. Your graph should have a few points where both the x-coordinate and the y-coordinate are integers; these will be helpful to use in your calculations. It is possible that your graph will look like it’s going through one of these integer nice points, but doesn’t actually go through it so if you use one for your calculation, it’ll be off. If WeBWorK is not accepting your answer, look on your graph for another one of these nice points and try using that one for your calculation instead.
3. If you want more Calculus II review problems to make sure you’re ready to integrate for this class, you can always try some of the MAT 1575 WeBWorK problems here. Don’t enter any login info, just click “Guest Login” at the bottom. None of your work will be saved but completing these problems is good practice.
4. If you need to review Calculus II content, you can see the video lessons on the MAT 1575 course hub here.