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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

So easy when you know the rules

Having worked for two solid days on question 5, I'm calling it quits. There are plenty more fish in the sea - specifically, five other questions to be done by Friday. By leaving question 5 strictly alone until at least tomorrow night I hope to distance myself from it and hence be able to actually do the algebra next time I try.

It wasn't until this morning's tutorial that I found out how to "easily" calculate a directional derivative. Pretty simple really - just apply the Jacobian matrix of the function to the direction vector in question. Ha ha, so easy. Ha.

Having done that and acquired derivatives that even Maple agrees with, I now find myself so egg-brained that I can't simplify the resulting expressions. Enough already.

I have very clear memories of today's tutorial last year - by which I mean the first tutorial for assignment 3 - as it was the last tutorial I attended for the course in 2006. A year ago I sat through it in total confusion. This year I followed everything, asked a question, and even understood the answer!

A year ago I skipped the second tutorial for assignment 3 because I was trying to finish the assignment. I didn't finish it, and that was it.

That's not going to happen this time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Game!

Anonymous said...

Well I was close.

Play the Game!

Gael said...

I will! Star for you :)

Amusing that you and Bruce have now both made the same error with reference to the title of this song.

Bruce Hoult said...

That's no doubt because of the name of the album.

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