2.S998 Statistics for Mechanical Engineering Research and Development
Fall 2015
Instructor: Daniel Frey
Lecture: TR 9.30-11 (5-134)
Information:
Announcements
Subject evaluations
The fall 2015 end-of-term subject evaluations are open at:http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation
Since this was the first time the subject was offered, your
feedback is especially important. The suggestions you provide will
be studied carefully and should help future students, so the time
you spend is greatly appreciated.
You have until Monday, December 14 at 9 AM to complete your
form.
Announced on 07 December 2015 8:52 a.m. by Daniel Frey
Schedule for student presentations 10 DEC
The planned schedule for student presentations next week is:Thursday 10 DEC
9:35-9:55 Amit Gandhi
9:55-10:15 Natasha Wright
10:15-10:35 David Taylor
10:35-10:55 Julieth Ochoa
Announced on 04 December 2015 2:00 p.m. by Daniel Frey
Tests for positive definiteness
Whitney checked her notes from 18.085 and found a few options for testing whether or not a matrix is positive definite - listed in order of best to worst (in terms of practical implementation).1) Try chol(A) in MATLAB, which factors A into LL’. If an error
is returned, it means the matrix is not positive definite
2) Do Gaussian elimination and if all the pivots are > 0, then
the matrix is positive definite.
3) Compute the eigenvalues, like we said in class, and check that
they are all positive.
Announced on 19 November 2015 2:23 p.m. by Daniel Frey
