Math 103 Current

Professor West's section of Math 103 is currently using Hohn's interactive 103 software. We've had two labs on the Linear Dynamics collection, and will also be using the Logistic Dynamics and Nonlinear Dynamics. A brief "documentation" is in the red binding Math 103 Miscellaneous Documentation on the top shelf of the lab bookcase.

Sometimes the screen loses the illustration after the screensaver comes on -- but if you click in the upper left where the quit box is hiding, you usually get back to the menu screen. Some of the programs in this series have been incompatible with the screensaver, so if necessary, reset the time interval on Moire to minimize interference. ( After such a reset, the machine must be rebooted for the time change to take affect.)

For the third lab we introduced Analyzer*, which we are using only for iteration (that means they have to choose Advanced Tasks!). A blue summary sheet was left in the lab (along with the introductory instructions on the pink sheets). Two ideas are not included on the pink sheets:

• 1. Cycles can be hard to recognize at first in a cobweb diagram, but may show up in the information sheet when you look down the list of iterates. When you see numbers cycling, you can do another iteration starting at one of those values, and then you get a beautiful clean cycle.
• 2. Printing: we wanted to use only QuickPrints, which in general can be done whenever the desired window (or windoid) is active. Two adjustments are advisable:
  • a. For QuickPrint Graph Window, on the machines with bigger screens, the command chunks out two sheets per print. This can be avoided by choosing Page Set-up and changing 100% to 90%; then you are set for the rest of the session.
  • b. For QuickPrint Iterations 1, the default will chunk out up to ELEVEN pages! Two valuable adjustments: In the Iterations 1 list, change x,y display to x display (by clicking at upper right). Then in the dialog box for the task Iterate, change the default setting of 200 iterates to 30 iterates. Now a quite adequate list fits nicely on one page.

In the fifth lab, Feb 22, we will turn to Discover Form, for which there is documentation in the lab bookcase.

By Spring Break we will have used Hohn's Iterated Function System, for which further brief documentation will be put in the Math 103 Miscellaneous Documentation collection.

After Spring Break will come Complex Paint and various Mandelbrot/Julia set programs; possibly we will also use MacMath's 2D Iterations.

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Last Update: February 9, 1996