| Instructor: | Jake Wildstrom Office: Natural Sciences Building 231 Primary office hours: Monday 15:00–16:00, Wednesday 14:00–15:00 Secondary office hours: Monday 12:30–13:30, Tuesday 11:00–12:00, or by appointment Phone number: (502)852-5845 (x5845) E-mail: dwildstr@erdos.math.louisville.edu |
| Lecture: | MWF 11:00–11:50 in Natural Sciences Building 212F |
| Prerequisites: | MATH 205 or ENGR 101 |
| Description: | Introduction to abstract mathematics with particular attention to developing proof-reading and proof-writing skills. The basics of set theory, functions, relations, number systems, countability. |
| Textbook: | Mathematical Proofs: A Transition to Higher Mathematics by Chartrand, Polimeni, and Zhang, second edition (ISBN 9780321390530). |
| Responsibilities: | You are responsible for attending class daily and maintaining comprehension of the material presented in class. Participation in class and presentation of results is necessary. You shall complete problem sets promptly, and attend examinations on March 4 during class and May 2 from 11:30–14:00. Extracurricular interaction with your fellow students, and with the instructor, will be very useful in developing your comprehension. |
| Special needs: | Any scheduled absence during a quiz or examination, or any other special needs, must be brought to my attention during the first week of class. |
| Assignments: | Except in cases of long-term illness or other long-term emergency situations, assignments must be turned in on time; assignments turned in within a week of their due date will receive half credit. All assignments must be typed. It is suggested (but not mandated) that you use the LaTeX document preparation system for your assignments; I am happy to provide assistance to anyone wishing to do so. |
| Assignment revision: | Up to half the lost credit may be recovered for revising imperfect free-response questions on assignments before the due date of the next assignment; do so by editing the original work rather than writing it anew, and turn in your revised version accompanied by the original. |
| Honesty: | There are many resources available to help you succeed in this class, including consultation during office hours, secondary texts, and cooperation with other students. It is important, however, that all papers handed in be the result of your individual comprehension of the course material. Duplication of others' work is both a disservice to your own education and a serious violation of the university's academic honesty policy. |
| Grades: | Problem sets will account for 35% of your grade, class participation will be 10%, the midterm examination will be worth 25%, and the final examination will be worth 30%. A 90% overall guarantees a grade of A–, 80% guarantees a B–, and 70% guarantees a C–. |
| Changes: | The syllabus is subject to change. Changes will be announced in class and updated online. |
Linux (or other Unix) users will probably already have LaTeX installed on their system; if not, follow system-dependent installation instructions for either tetex or texlive. I suggest emacs as a text-editor for use on Linux; the addition of the AUCTeX enhancements to emacs will integrate in much more closely with LaTeX. All of the aforementioned pieces of software (texlive, emacs, auctex) are available in package forms for most major distributions, and those are probably the easiest ways to install them.
Windows users will probably want MikTeX as the underlying LaTeX install; a graphical interface and editor will be quite useful, and both purposes are served quite well by TeXnicCenter.
Macintosh users may be on their own to some extent. Since OS X actually sits on top of a Unix system, the solutions given for Unix will work but may be unacceptably spartan or difficult to set up. I don't have much experience with OS X-specific LaTeX installs but those who do know about them have compiled detailed info on a wiki.