Jim Hefferon

Mathematics
Saint Michael's College
Colchester, Vermont USA

This page will get you to some documents, including my Linear Algebra text. It also has information about my classes, and how to reach me.

What's Up?

I have three bookd that are Free.

• Linear Algebra. is for the first course for US undergraduates. It includes the PDF of the text, LaTeX source code, in-class beamer slides, and lab manual using Sage.
• Theory of Computation. is for the theory course taken by undergraduate Computer Science majors, and sometimes by Mathematics majors. It includes the PDF of the text and LaTeX source code.
• A Inquiry-based Introduction to Proofs. is for the proofs course often given to US undergraduates. It includes the PDF of the text, the LaTeX source, and some in-class beamer slides. This is for an Inquiry-based course, so the text for the entire semester is just seven sheets of paper.

I'm also having a lot of fun with Logic, Scheme, and ham radio. (I'm KE1AZ by the way. CW QSO?) And, jogging.

Reaching Me.

Here at Saint Michael's, my office is STE 245, my postal mail address: is Box 285, One Winooski Park, Colchester, VT USA 05439, and my office phone number is (USA area code 802) 654-2677. The email address that I check most often is jhefferon at smcvt.edu.

Additional documents

An undergraduate Number Theory book.

This book is also available free for downloading. It covers a first course, and is based on a writeup by W Edwin Clark, of the University of South Florida. It also comes with LaTeX source.

A Calculus lab on the Local Growth Rates of Polynomials, and the LaTeX and Gnuplot source.

This lab is intended to be used right away---in the first week---as a way of developing derivatives that complements the tangent line development. My approach is that (i) labs in Calculus should focus on Calculus as much as possible, not on the software, and (ii) students will get more out of a lab if they prepare for it ahead of time. This lab has three parts---Before the Keyboard, At the Keyboard, and After the Keyboard. In the first part they do some by-hand problems, which get expanded in the second part to problems best suited to machine calculation. Then the third part is a quite short, ``where do we go from here''-type thing. All three parts have a few exercises.

I intend to write some more in the same style when I get a chance. (if someone sends me mail telling me how great this one is, that would be an inducement!).