The course is over! Final grades have been submitted to MySlice. Thanks to everyone for a great semester, and enjoy your summer.

Basics

Instructor

Prof. Graham Leuschke

Contact

gjleusch@math.syr.edu

Time & Place

TR 9:30—10:50, Carnegie 219

Office Hours

MW 10—12, TF 3:30—4:30; by appointment; and any time my door is open (206C Carnegie)

Text

Contemporary Abstract Algebra, 7th ed., Joe Gallian, Brooks/Cole 2009. (textbook web site)

Important documents

course syllabus

Exam I

The first midterm exam was in class on Thursday February 11. The class mean was 75.31 and the median was 76. There is a key available outside my office door.

Exam II

The second midterm was in class on Thursday March 11. The class mean was 70.62 and the median was 74. I’ll post the key soon.

Exam III

The third midterm will be in class on Thursday April 22.

Problem Sets

• Homework 10
• Homework 09
• Homework 08
• Homework 07
• Homework 06
• Homework 05
• Homework 04
• Homework 03
• Homework 02
• Homework 01

It has been said that ‘the human mind has never invented a labor-saving machine equal to algebra.’ If this be true, it is but natural and proper that an age like our own, characterized by the multiplication of labor-saving machinery, should be distinguished by the unexampled development of this most refined and most beautiful of machines.

Josiah Willard Gibbs, 1887

Links

• A couple links on the group theory of Rubiks’ Cube: The Rotation Group of Rubik’s Cube (pdf), and Group theory and the Rubik’s cube (pdf). Also an online Rubik’s cube to play with (and there’s even an iPhone app for that!)
• The nuts and bolts of writing mathematics (some really good advice here)
• How to write mathematics, by Paul Halmos
• Mathematics as a Creative Art, Halmos
• How to talk mathematics, Halmos again.