18.703 Modern Algebra
Spring 2017
Instructors: Pavel I Etingof, etingof@math.mit.edu
TA: Kostiantyn Tolmachov
Lecture: TR11-12.30 (2-139)
Announcements
Pset 11
Pset 11 in 18.703 has been posted and is due Friday May 12, 4pm, in my office 2-282 (you can slide it under the door). This is the last Pset in the class.
Best, Pavel
Announced on 05 May 2017 6:49 a.m. by Pavel I Etingof
Exam 2
Hi all,Exam 2 in 18.703 will be held on Thursday, May 11, in class. It will cover sections 18-24, 26-27, 29-30 of the Fraleigh book. The rules of the exam are the same as for Exam 1.
Some practice exams can be found here
http://math.mit.edu/~mckernan/Teaching/12-13/Spring/18.703/18.703.html
However, our exam will be more based on examples (i.e., more similar to our Exam 1), and won't contain questions requiring you to state or prove a general theorem from the course.
I will hold a special office hour Wednesday, May 10, 2-3pm, in my office. Also feel free to drop by at another time if you have questions.
Best, Pavel
Announced on 04 May 2017 1:36 p.m. by Pavel I Etingof
Question 28, section 18 and office hours
Question 28 in Section 18 was assigned in the last homework and was again assigned this week, by accident. Please ignore it.
Also my office hours tomorrow (Tuesday) will only be held from 10am to 11am (and not from 1.30 to 2.30). By the way, if the office hours are inconvenient to you but you have questions, please don't hesitate to write to me for an appointment or simply knock on my foor.
Best, Pavel
Announced on 17 April 2017 8:00 a.m. by Pavel I Etingof
Exam 1 results
Hi all,The scores for exam 1 in 18.703 are posted. Note that the average was 51.5 out of 90 (the exam was intentionally quite challenging). However, if your score is less than 30, you should worry about failing the class, and think about dropping it.
Also, the solutions are online, I suggest that you look at them.
I will be in the office tomorrow before 3pm, most of the time. You may try to drop by and get back your test. Otherwise, you can do it after the break.
The homework is due April 6.
Have a good break!
Best, Pavel.
Announced on 23 March 2017 4:57 p.m. by Pavel I Etingof
Exam 1
1. Reminder: office hours tonight 6.30-8pm, 2-282.
2. Lecture notes are on the Stellar site. For fun, you may also look in the group theory notes I once wrote for a summer camp:
http://www-math.mit.edu/~etingof/miscnotes.html
This has much of the stuff we discussed in a concise form and a lot of fun material (SET, Rubik cube, etc.) which we did not have time to discuss.
3. Skills tested on the exam:
*Finding orders of elements and elements of given order in groups.
*Composing and inverting permutations, cycle decompositions, oreder and sign of a permutation
*Fundamental theorem on finitely generated abelian groups. Writing finite abelian groups as products of cyclic groups.
*Checking weather two groups are isomorphic
*Finding subgroups in a given group, deciding which are normal. Lagrange's theorem. Factor groups
*Conjugacy classes
See you tomorrow! Best, Pavel
Announced on 22 March 2017 7:13 a.m. by Pavel I Etingof
