| Administrivia | Prerequisites and syllabus | Exams, HW and grading policy | Homework sets | Homework solutions | Lecture notes |
The course meets MWF 12:30PM-13:20PM in WEH 7201. If you want to meet, send email to jcumming@andrew.cmu.edu to arrange an appointment.
Homework will be set most Wednesdays, will be due on the following Wednesday, and should be returned graded by the Wednesday after that. Late homework will not be accepted under any circumstances, but the lowest homework score will be dropped. Homework must be typeset (preferably in LaTeX) and submitted by email as a PDF file.
Important note 1: Your homework file should be named according to the scheme "[Your last name]_algebra_[Number of the homework].pdf", so that eg Aaron Aardvark's tenth homework set is "Aardvark_algebra_10.pdf". I won't guarantee that homework not named like this will get graded in a timely fashion.
Important note 2: I generally encourage cooperation on the homework, but you must write up your solutions by yourself and state with whom you have discussed each problem. Cooperation on the tests is cheating and will lead to serious consequences, which can include failing the course and disciplinary action by the university.
Prerequisites: You should have a firm grasp of undergraduate group theory and undergraduate linear algebra. See the groups handout for specifics on the group theory. From linear algebra we need only the basic facts about linear dependence, dimension, linear transformations and matrices.
Tentative syllabus.
There will be a takehome final. Grades will be assigned according to a formula in which (roughly speaking) homework counts 50 percent and the final counts 50 percent.