Math 147 - Calculus From an Historical Perspective - Course Calendar

The calendar presented below will be updated often over the course of the semester. Boolmark and visit this page often to stay informed about assignments, important deadlines, and hints to problems.

August
September
October
November
December

Notes:

Days on which the class meets are in white background. Holidays are marked in green. Test dates are in red.
Reading assignments appear on the day they are to be prepared. They are of two kinds:

readings from the textbook are marked by section number in boldface after the topic title; and
other readings are found at links to the topic title (some are found on the Web, others are on XU Library E-reserves).

Homework assignments are referenced to the textbook (e.g. 7E12 refers to exercise #12 on p. 201 of the text) or are of my own device (and are linked to a separate page of exercises). Due dates for assignments are given on the date they are assigned.

Return to the course homepage.

August 2002
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
26	27	28 Plimpton 322 [sexagesimal notation; the Pythagorean Theorem; pre-Greek mathematics] do exercises 1 & 4, due 9/4	29	30 The Pythagorean School: Nicomachus' Introduction to Arithmetic (1.1) [preeminence of number; quadrivium & trivium]

September 2002
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
2 LABOR DAY	3	4 Zeno's paradoxes (3.3) [natural philosophy; problem of the infinite; continuous vs. discrete; geometric series] do exercises 1, 3, 5, and 3B7, 3B8, due 9/9	5	6 Hippocrates' lunes (3.2) [Greek geometry; the area problem; the integral] do exercises 2, 3, due 9/16
9	10	11 Eudoxus' Method [Construction problems; formal proof; Euclid's legacy; method of exhaustion] do exercises 1 and 2, due 9/18	12	13
16 Eratosthenes measures the Earth (1.2-1.3) [Greek astronomy; applied geometry] do exercise 1E16, due 9/23	17	18 Aristarchus' astronomy (1.4-1.5) do exercises 1G23 and 1G24, due 9/23	19	20 Quadrature of the Parabola (3.1 and 3.4) do exercise 3, due 9/27
23 The tangent problem	24	25 Apollonius' Conics [conic sections, symptoms of curves]	26	27
30 Modern reformulations (4.3-4.5) [2nd degree polynomials]	.	.	.	.

October 2002
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
.	1	2 Test #1	3 FALL	4 BREAK
7 Ptolemy's Almagest (2.1-2.2) [early trigonometry]	8	9 epicycles and heliocentrism (2.3-2.7) do 2D8 and these exercises, due 9/16	10	11
14 First paper is due	15	16	17	18 NO MEETING
21 The birth of algebra [Viète's Analytic Art] do #1 and #3, due 10/30	22	23	24	25 Prof. Costavisits: Galileo and the birth of science
28 Logarithms [fast computation] do these exercises, due 11/4	29	30 Kepler's Nova Astronomia [birth of science]	31	.

November 2002
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
.	.	.	.	1 Galileo on free-fall [the derivative]
4	5	6 Galileo on ballistic motion, do these exercises, due 9/15	7	8
11	12	13	14	15
18	19	20 Fermat's method of adequation [optimization problems] do these exercises, due 12/6	21	22 Cavalieri's Principle and the Integral Power Rule
25 Test #2	26	27 THANKSGIVING	28 HOLIDAY	29 BREAK

December 2002
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
2 Leibniz' differentials	3	4 The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus	5	6 Newton's De Analysi
9 Second paper is due	10	11 Berkeley's "ghosts"	12	13 wrap-up
16	17	18	19 FINAL EXAM 1:00-2:50	.