Mathematics 403
Introduction to Modern Algebra
Winter 2000

LECTURE TIME AND PLACE: MWF 9:30, MEB 246
INSTRUCTOR: John Palmieri
  Padelford C538, 253-1785
  E-mail: palmieri@math.washington.edu
OFFICE HOURS: ¯ Monday and Wednesday, 10:30-11:30
  (or just drop by-I'm around a lot)
WEB: http://www.math.washington.edu/~palmieri/Math403/
TEXT: Algebra by M. Artin

EXAMINATIONS AND GRADING: There will be one mid-term exam, weekly problem sets, and a final exam. The mid-term exam is worth 100 points, the homework will count for 150 points, and the final is worth 150 points, for a total of 400 points.

HOUR EXAM: date to be announced

FINAL EXAM: 8:30-10:20 am, Wednesday, March 15.

HOMEWORK: Homework will be assigned weekly. Feel free to work with other people on your homework, but you must write your solutions yourself. If you find a solution in a book, please provide a reference.

PLAN FOR THE COURSE: We are going to start, more or less, with Chapter 5, on symmetry groups of objects in two and three dimensions. (First we have to do a little bit of background material from Chapter 4: orthogonal matrices and rigid motions.) Then we will do some of Chapter 6, at least the parts on the icosahedral group and the Sylow theorems. Depending on how much time is left after that, we will either do Chapter 7 (bilinear forms, and especially the spectral theorem) or start in on Chapters 10 (rings) and 11 (factorization).

PROBLEM SETS: I have provided a list of problems for each section of the text; on each Friday you will hand in the problems for the sections covered through the previous Monday's lecture. If we happen to have finished a chapter by that Monday, then you will also be responsible for the ``Miscellaneous'' problems. Note that there are a few extra-credit problems listed.


Go to Math 403 home page.

Go to John Palmieri's home page.


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