Math. 311                                           Fall 1998

                     HOMEWORK SUMMARY REPORT


  Week number:          12
    
  Problem number:  7.1.4

  Number of papers received: 2 

  Reviewing committee (Greek letter): zeta       

  List all participating members:  Scott Chen, Chris Clearman, Kai Joe



  Author[s] of paper[s] chosen for publication:  John Lopez                
     [and Keith Kirkendall]


  Comments:  John's paper looks great, [The other] looks okay too but his
part A looks like he wasn't sure and the answer was wrong. 

INSTRUCTOR'S COMMENT:  John's argument is needlessly complicated.  The
other paper, after a slight correction by me, makes the simple argument.
The point is that the determinant of a matrix of this form is the product
of the differences of all possible pairs of the list of numbers involved,
the earlier number in the list getting the positive sign.  (Note that this
makes the determinant zero when two of the numbers are equal, in
accordance with the related problem 7.1.6.)