Math 3397, Fall 2007

Basic Info	Instructor:	Dr. Mark Tomforde
	Office:	601 PGH
	Phone:	713-743-3672
	Office Hours:	Monday 2:30PM -- 3:30PM, Wednesday 11:00AM -- 11:30AM, (or by appointment)
	Syllabus:	Download the Syllabus
	Lecture:	MW 1:00PM -- 2:30PM in 12 AH
	ANNOUNCEMENTS:	Here is the Final Exam.

Exams and Homework

Homework:

Due Monday, Nov. 26
Reading Assignment: Sec. 5.2--5.5
To Be Handed In: Homework 10
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 4.4 #1, 2, 9, 14, 22, Sec. 5.1 #5, Sec. 5.2 #1, 2, 3

Due Monday, Nov. 12
Reading Assignment: Sec. 4.4 and Sec 5.1
To Be Handed In: Homework 9
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 4.2 #4, 19, Sec. 4.3 #3, 14, 17

Due Monday, Nov. 5
Reading Assignment: Sec. 4.2--4.3
To Be Handed In: Homework 8
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 3.1 #16, 25, Sec. 4.1 #1, 3, 8, 11

Due Monday, Oct. 29
Reading Assignment: Sec. 4.1--4.2
To Be Handed In: Nothing. Work on Exam.
Not To Be Handed In: Nothing. Work on Exam.

Due Monday, Oct. 22
Reading Assignment: Sec. 3.3--3.4
To Be Handed In: Homework 7
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 3.1 #1, 8, 9, 11, 20; Sec. 3.2 #1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16; Sec. 3.3 #2, 3, 8, 15

Due Monday, Oct. 15
Reading Assignment: Sec. 3.1--3.2
To Be Handed In: Homework 6
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 2.4 #8ab, 9ab, 10, Sec. 2.5 #6acd, 15, Sec. 2.6 #10, 11

Due Monday, Oct. 8
Reading Assignment: Sec. 2.4--2.6
To Be Handed In: Homework 5
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 2.1 #2, 4, 6, 19, Sec. 2.2 #10, 11, 12, 13, 17, Sec. 2.3 #1, 4, 13, 20

Due Monday, Sept. 24
Reading Assignment: Nothing. Prepare for Exam.
To Be Handed In: Homework 4
Not To Be Handed In: Nothing. Prepare for Exam.

Due Monday, Sept. 17
Reading Assignment: Nothing. Work on proof techniques.
To Be Handed In: Homework 3
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 1.6 #1(a)-(e), 5(a)(b), 8, Sec. 1.7 #1(a)-(c), 12

Due Monday, Sept. 10
Reading Assignment: Sec. 2.1--2.3.
To Be Handed In: Homework 2
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 1.4 #11, Sec. 1.5 #3b, 5a, 12

Due Monday, Sept. 3
Reading Assignment: Sec. 1.4--1.7.
To Be Handed In: Homework 1
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 1.3 #1,2

Due Monday, Aug. 27
Reading Assignment: Preface, p. vi-xii, Sec. 1.1--1.3. Also read over your class notes.
To Be Handed In: Nothing.
Not To Be Handed In: Sec. 1.1 #1, 2, 7; Sec. 1.2 #1, 4

Exam Dates:
Take-Home Exam 1 -- Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the beginning of class.
Take-Home Exam 2 -- Wednesday, Oct. 24 at the beginning of class.
Final Exam -- Wednesday, Dec. 12 at 2PM.

Miscellaneous Resources

It will be important for you to read your textbook in this course. If you are unfamiliar with reading mathematics textbooks, here is a collection of Tips for Reading Your Mathematics Textbook that I have written.

The history of mathematics is an important subject. It gives a context in which to view the results that one learns in math classes. Furthermore it shows that mathematics is, first and foremost, a human activity. By looking at the historical development of many areas of mathematics we see that it took a long time for many of its ideas to be rigorized. Like many areas of human understanding, the development of mathematics was not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but rather a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often got lost and many wrong turns were taken. If you find yourself struggling to understand the concepts introduced in this course, then you are in good company. Many of the greatest minds in mathematics struggled with these same concepts over a period of thousands of years.

MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive.

Wikipedia (the free online encyclopedia) has a number of excellent articles about mathematics. I encourage you to browse some of the articles on the site. In particular, you might want to read about the following topics:

Mathematics
Mathematical Proof
Deductive Reasoning
Set Theory
Functions
Foundations of Mathematics
Philosophy of Mathematics
Mathematical Beauty

The Wikipedia Mathematics Portal with featured weekly articles.

For something different, check out this Nova site about one of the greatest achievements of mathematics in the 20th century:

The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem

Also check out some unsolved problems in mathematics

Famous Unsolved Problems in Mathematics
A List of Mathematical Conjectures
The Millennium Prize Problems, each of which carries an award of $1,000,000 to anyone who can solve the problem.

and the various awards that are given to people working towards the solutions of these, and many other, problems in mathematics:

The Fields Medal, often called the Nobel Prize of mathematics
The Abel Prize, established in 2001.

And for something a little lighter, check out Mathematrix, and in particular, Math Comics.

NOTE: If you are interested in obtaining software to do mathematical typesetting (to write up your proofs, for example), come talk to me and I can tell about about LaTeX, a freely available typesetting program used by most mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. (This is what I use to type up homework and exams.) The software is freely available, but depending on what Operating System you use there are various implementations. There is a slight learning curve when first starting to use the program, but once you get the basics down it makes it much easier to typeset mathematics symbols and equations.

Math 3397, Fall 2007

Basic Info

Exams and Homework

Miscellaneous Resources