Homework
Homework will be due on Tuesdays. There will be a peer grading requirement. Assignments will be posted on bCoursesExaminations
- Diagnostic quiz, September 7, in class
- First midterm exam, October 5 in class
- Second midterm exam, November 9 in class
- Final exam, Tuesday, December 12, 8-11am. Room TBA
Grading
- I plan to assign grades by calculating a "composite grade" for each student after the final exam papers have been graded. The composite grade will attempt to reflect the following weights: Homework 35%, midterm exams 15% each, final exam 35%.
- You do not have to take any of these tests except for the Final; and if you take the test, you do not have to turn it in. If you turn it in, it counts. If you do not turn in a midterm, it's weight will be added to the weight of the final exam.
- Advice: Though missing an exam is sometimes unavoidable, my experience is that those who do not take and turn in an exam because they feel unprepared usually wind up dropping or failing the course.
Ken Ribet's schedule (Ours will be a little different!)
To give you an idea of the course contents, this table is the schedule of lectures by Ken Ribet in 2015 (thanks to Ken for allowing me to use his material!) I plan to start in a different order, with the structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a principal ideal ring.
| Date | Themes | Sections | ||
| Aug. 24 |
|
N/A | ||
| Aug. 29 |
|
§§ 1.5-1.6 | ||
| Aug. 31/td> | Sylow's theorems | § 1.6 | ||
| Sept. 5 |
|
§ 1.3 | ||
| Sept. 7 |
|
§1.3, §§1.7-1.8 | ||
| Sept. 12 | Finitely gen. ab. groups | § 1.8 | ||
| Sept. 14 | Elementary divisors | §§ 3.4, 3.7 | ||
| Sept. 19 | Rings | §§ 2.1-2.2, A.2 | ||
| Sept. 21 | Commutative rings | §§ 2.2-2.4 | ||
| Sept. 26 | UFDs, PIDs | §§ 2.5, 3.1 | Sept. 28 | ???? | §§ 2.5, 3.1 |
| Oct. 3 | First Midterm Exam | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct. 5 | Modules | §§ 3.1-3.4 | ||
| Oct. 10 | Projective modules, categories,... | §§ 1.11, 3.4 | ||
| Oct. 12 | Representable functors, tensor products | §§ 16.1-16.3 | ||
| Oct. 17 | Representable functors, tensor products | §§ 16.1-16.3 | ||
| Oct. 19 | Mostly flat modules | §§ 16.1-16.3 | ||
| Oct. 24 | Flat modules and polynomials | §§ 16.1-16.3, 4.1 | ||
| Oct. 26 | Polynomials | §§ 4.1-4.3 | ||
| Oct. 31 | Yet more on polynomials | §§ 4.1-4.4 | ||
| Nov 2 | Second Midterm Exam | |||
| Polynomials, field extensions | §§ 4.3, 4.4, 5.1 | |||
| Nov. 7 | Algebraic extensions, algebraic closure | § 5.2 | ||
| Nov. 9 | Algebraic extensions | §§ 5.1-5.2 | ||
| Nov. 14 | Normal extensions, separable degree | §§ 5.3-1.4 | ||
| Nov. 16 | Finite fields | § 5.5 | ||
| Nov. 21 | Primitive element theorem, Galois stuff | §§ 5.4, 6.1 | ||
| Nov. 23 | No Class: Thanksgiving | §§ 6.1-6.2 | ||
| Nov 28 | Galois theory: examples and applications | §§ 6.2-6.3 | ||
| Nov 30--last regular class (RRR week follows) | Galois theory: examples and applications | §§ 6.2-6.3 | ||
| Dec. 3 | Review | |||
| Dec. 8 | Questions | |||
| Dec. 10 | Questions | |||
Practice and old exams
- Departmental archive of old Math 250A exams
- Tau Beta Pi archive of old Math 250A exams
- Fall, 2014 practice problems
- Fall, 2012 course page
- Fall, 2004 Exams
- Fall, 2001 Exams
- First midterm exam, September 30
- Last midterm exam
- Final exam
- Fall, 1992 Exams
Random Links
- Snake Lemma video with Jill Clayburgh
- Groupes finis, lectures by J-P. Serre in 1978--1979 George Mark Bergman's Companion to our textbook
- Homophonic Quotients of Free Groups
- Two photos from the last day of class: vertical and horizontal
Last Updated: 02/26/2023 16:17:42