July 18

Friday July 20, 2007 5:50 am Lethbridge

It is +13 C with a high forecast of +28 C. Sunrise 5:45 Sunset 21:30 Hours of daylight: 15:45

A. Morning Musings

5:50 am

The hot weather is sapping my incentive to engage in almost anything serious. Yesterday we took the truck in for some maintenance to the air conditioning, had a very pleasant lunch, and visited the main stationery store downtown where I learned that they did not carry any fountain pens.

However I did receive a response to my introductory post to the Fountain Pen Network that gave me a few addresses in both Edmonton and Calgary where I might be more successful. I found a web site for the one in Edmonton and it looks fantastic.

Immediate	Description	Time
Technology	Continue creating a tutorial web site: general sequence	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami	1 hr
Mathematics	Complete problems 1.21 - 1.? of "The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems"	1 hr

C. Actual Learning Activities

7:30 am

I have been on the Fountain Pen Network discussion board for about an hour this morning, and added one post to my profile.

Now to renew my presence at the The Gauge model trains discussion board. There is no point in belonging if one does not participate. I browsed a number of threads, but nothing caught my eye. I really must get back into this hobby.

Perhaps a little math will wake me up.

Mathematics 21

July 20, 2007

8:10am

This is a simple continuation of the problems at the beginning of the book.

The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems (2006) W. Michael Kelley

Chapter 1 Linear Equations and Inequalities

Here are my scans (original at color - magazine, 200 dpi, export at width of 600 pixels) of the problems I completed in a one hour session this afternoon.

calculus

calulus

9:25 am

I have been treating each of these calculus sessions as a one-hour activity. The fact that I am able to easily understand the material so far is a nice encouragement, but I am still making a few careless mistakes (I got caught on a trick question this morning - see above) which shows that I still need to be more precise in each step that I take. I do feel that I am improving, but will be glad when I am through this preview stage and am onto actual calculus.

Working in the cool of the morning is much better than the heat of the late afternoon.

1:45 PM

This is the first time I have completed two sessions on the same day.

Here are my notes from the second session.

calculus

2:00 PM

I had little difficulty with the logic of these problems, but I did make another silly computational mistake in the last problem. It is encouraging to see that the math ideas are still not giving me difficulty, but it is annoying to make careless mistakes. I am going to have to tighten up my precision when manipulating symbols.

2.15 PM

My two abstract algebra books have arrived. Here are the scans of the covers:

Herstein

The cover gives little insight into the contents. The book received very high ratings on the Web sites, particularly for the wealth of problems. I plan to work slowly and carefully through all of these problems, alternating sessions with the Kelley calculus book.

I also received, at a substantially smaller price, a Schaum's Outline for the same topic.

Schaum

Here is the back cover:

Schaumback

I have now had a glance at the Herstein book. Yes, there are numerous problems, but ... there are no solutions. I am really going to be on my own here.