Month: January 2020

Why Don’t I Allow (Not Ban) Use of Cell Phones in Class – An Open Letter to Students?

Dear Students:

You are not allowed to use cell phones in this class — it is considered academic disruption. If you are expecting an important call or text, please let me know in advance and I will advise to sit at desks close to the door. You can quickly go outside to take the call or reply to your text. In a class of over a hundred, only a few people take me up on this offer, but the offer is available to you. “Loved ones though should call 911 in case of an emergency — the local responders will be there faster than you can.”

If you have an approved request for accommodation through the Student Disability Services to use your cell phone, please use it as per the allowed guidelines — just let me know in the first week of classes. You are being an exception to the policy is nobody’s business including mine. Do not be concerned about being “outed” — we all are outed every day – some are in a wheel chair while others use a skateboard, some can only take the elevator while others only take the stairs; some of us are not good looking while others are blessed with a head full of hair; some wear a head dress, while others have a skullcap on.

You are allowed to use flat laptops and tablets only if they are used to take notes with a stylus. A student cannot claim they want to type notes as that is virtually impossible to do in an engineering course lecture that is full of equations and sketches. Anyway, taking notes by hand is shown to be cognitively better than typing.

About those students who may mention personal responsibility and that disallowing the cell phone is an ego trip for me, how many studies do I need to show these students about negative effects of multitasking and working memory when one is learning something new.

The student use of cell phones distracts others and there are studies on that too.

Since we are using active learning in class, questions are encouraged even more so. It is harder to discern if a student is asking a question because of inattention or lack of understanding.  The former is a waste of precious class time for the rest of us.

And more importantly, removing temptation is much better than self-control. We only have so much self-control quota during the day – so having a no cell phone policy is helping the student to preserve some self-control for more important issues of the day.

Some may say, “Be more interesting than the incoming text”. I just cannot compete, as learning something new is hard and looking at a “Facebook like” is an immediate high.

Control the machine; do not let the machine control you.

Best of Learning
Autar Kaw
Your Instructor for Numerical Methods

______________________

This post is brought to you by

How do I solve simultaneous linear equations given in equation form? Updated Matlab 2018b

Guest co-blogger: : Luis Serrano

Many students ask me how do I do this or that in MATLAB.  So I thought why not have a small series of my next few blogs do that.  In this blog, I show you how to solve simultaneous linear equations given in equation form.

  • The MATLAB program link is here.
  • The HTML version of the MATLAB program is here.
  • DO NOT COPY AND PASTE THE PROGRAM BELOW BECAUSE THE SINGLE QUOTES DO NOT TRANSLATE TO THE CORRECT SINGLE QUOTES IN MATLAB EDITOR.  DOWNLOAD THE MATLAB PROGRAM INSTEAD

%% SUMMARY
% Language : Matlab 2018b;
% Authors : Autar Kaw and Luis Serrano;
% Mfile available at
% http://nm.mathforcollege.com/blog/SimultaneousEquationsEqForm.m;
% Last Revised : January 22, 2020;
% Abstract: This program shows you how to solve a set of
% simultaneous linear equations given in equation form?
% .
clc
clear all
%% INTRODUCTION
disp(‘ABSTRACT’)
disp(‘ This program shows you how to solve a’)
disp(‘ set of simultaneous linear equations given in equation form’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘AUTHOR’)
disp(‘ Autar Kaw and Luis Serrano’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘MFILE SOURCE’)
disp(‘ http://nm.mathforcollege.com/blog/SimultaneousEquationsEqForm.m’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘LAST REVISED’)
disp(‘ January 22, 2020’)
disp(‘ ‘)
%% INPUTS
% Enter the equations
syms a b c
eqn1=12*a+23*b+39*c==29
eqn2=13*a+17*b+19*c==37
eqn3=21*a+23*b+29*c==59
%% DISPLAYING INPUTS
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘INPUTS’)
disp(‘________________________’)
disp(‘Equations’)
disp(‘________________________’)
disp(eqn1)
disp(eqn2)
disp(eqn3)
%% THE CODE
% The solution
X=solve(eqn1,eqn2,eqn3);
% Assigning the output
a=double(X.a);
b=double(X.b);
c=double(X.c);
%% DISPLAYING OUTPUTS
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘OUTPUTS’)
disp(‘________________________’)
disp(‘Solution Vector’)
disp(‘________________________’)
fprintf(‘\nValue of a= %g’,a)
fprintf(‘\nValue of b= %g’,b)
fprintf(‘\nValue of c= %g’,c)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘________________________’)

_______________________

This post is brought to you by

How do I solve a nonlinear equation that needs to be setup – Updated to MATLAB 2018b

Guest co-blogger: Luis Serrano

Many students ask me how do I do this or that in MATLAB. So I thought why not have a small series of my next few blogs do that. In this blog, I show you how to solve a nonlinear equation that needs to be set up.

For example to find the depth ‘x’ to which a ball is floating in water is based on the following cubic equation
4*R^3*S=3*x^2*(R-x/3)
where
R= radius of ball
S= specific gravity of ball
So how do we set this up if S and R are input values?

The MATLAB program link is here.

The HTML version of the MATLAB program is here.

  • DO NOT COPY AND PASTE THE PROGRAM BELOW BECAUSE THE SINGLE QUOTES DO NOT TRANSLATE TO THE CORRECT SINGLE QUOTES IN MATLAB EDITOR.  DOWNLOAD THE MATLAB PROGRAM INSTEAD

%% SUMMARY
% Language : Matlab 2018b;
% Authors : Autar Kaw and Luis Serrano;
% Mfile available at
% http://nm.mathforcollege.com/blog/NonlinearEquations_withSetUp.m;
% Last Revised : January 22, 2020;
% Abstract: This program shows you how to solve a nonlinear equation
% that needs to set up as opposed that is just given to you.
clc
clear all
%% INTRODUCTION
disp(‘ABSTRACT’)
disp(‘ This program shows you how to solve’)
disp(‘ a nonlinear equation that needs to be setup’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘AUTHORS’)
disp(‘ Autar Kaw and Luis Serrano’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘MFILE SOURCE’)
disp(‘ http://nm.mathforcollege.com/blog/NonlinearEquations_withSetUp.m’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘LAST REVISED’)
disp(‘ January 22, 2020’)
disp(‘ ‘)
%% INPUTS
% Solve the nonlinear equation where you need to set up the equation
% For example to find the depth ‘x’ to which a ball is floating in water is based on the following
% cubic equation 4*R^3*S=3*x^2*(R-x/3) R= radius of ball S= specific gravity of ball So how do we set this up if S and R are input values
S=0.6
R=0.055
%% DISPLAYING INPUTS
disp(‘INPUTS’)
func=[‘ The equation to be solved is 4*R^3*S=3*x^2*(R-x/3)’];
disp(func)
disp(‘ ‘)
%% THE CODE
% Define x as a symbol
syms x
% Setting up the equation
C1=4*R^3*S
C2=3*x^2*(R-x/3)
f=C1==C2
% Finding the solution of the nonlinear equation
soln=vpasolve(f,x);
solnvalue=double(soln);
%% DISPLAYING OUTPUTS
disp(‘OUTPUTS’)
for i=1:1:length(solnvalue)
fprintf(‘\nThe solution# %g is %g’,i,solnvalue(i))
end
disp(‘ ‘)

________________________

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Solution to ordinary differential equations posed as definite integral

This blog is an example to show the use of second fundamental theorem of calculus in posing a definite integral as an ordinary differential equation.  This plays a prominent role in showing how we can use numerical methods of ordinary differential equations to conduct numerical integration.

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