Math 301
(Last updated Wednesday, March 22, 2023 @ 4:15pm)
Course Information and Materials
Instructor: Professor Nicholas Vlamis
Instructor Office: 507 Kiely
Instructor Email: nicholas.vlamis@qc.cuny.edu
Class Meeting: Monday/Wednesday 1:40–3:30pm in Kiely 277
Office Hour: Monday/Wednesday 4–5pm (or by appointment)
Textbook: Abstract Algebra by Thomas W. Judson, 2021 Edition (pdf | html)
Contact: You can always reach me via email or on Discord. I will try to respond within 24 hours.
Week 9 (Week of March 20)
Helpful reading: Section 5.1, Section 5.2
Exam 2 is on Monday, April 3. Exam 2 will cover the content from homework assignments 5, 6, and 7. This is the content from Section 3.3, Section 4.1, Section 5.1, and Section 5.2 , as well as content introduced through the homework itself (such as homomorphisms, kernels, centralizers, torsion subgroup, etc.)
Monday's class: Proved two main theorems about cyclic groups: (1) every subgroup of a cyclic group is cylic, and (2) we computed the order of elements in finite cyclic groups.
Wednesday's class: Computed the orders of elements in the symmetric group. Re-introduced the dihedral groups, computed their order, and gave a generating set with relations, and discussed how to realize a dihedral group as a permutation group.
Week 8 (Week of March 13)
Helpful reading: Section 4.1, Section 5.1
Monday's class: Proved two main theorems about cyclic groups: (1) every subgroup of a cyclic group is cylic, and (2) we computed the order of elements in finite cyclic groups.
Wednesday's class: Introduced permutations, symmetric groups, and permutation groups. Discussed two ways of expressing permutations: two-row representations and cycle notation.
Week 7 (Week of March 6)
Helpful reading: Section 3.3, Section 4.1
Monday's class: Discussed subgroup tests, the center of a group, the center of Dihedral groups, and spent time working on problems about 2x2 (real) matrices.
Wednesday' class: Introduced cyclic (sub)groups, generators of cylcic groups, cyclic subgroups generated by an element, and the order of an element. We discussed several examples where we found generators, computed the cyclic subgroups, and found orders of elements. Proved that cyclic groups are abelian.
Week 6 (Week of February 27)
Helpful reading: Section 3.3
Exam 1 on Wednesday
Exam 1 will cover Chapter 2, Section 3.1, and Section 3.2 from the textbook as well as the definition of equivalence relations.
You may bring one sheet of notes written on the front and back on an 8.5"x11" of paper.
Monday's Class: Introduced the notion of subgroup and went over numerous examples.
Week 5 (Week of February 20)
Helpful reading: Section 3.2
***Exam 1 is on Wednesday, March 1.***
Exam 1 will cover Chapter 2, Section 3.1, and Section 3.2 from the textbook as well as the definition of equivalence relations.
Homework Assignment #4 (This assignment will not be collected, but there will be a problem from this assignment on Exam 1.)
CUNY closed on Monday, February 20, but we have class on Tuesday, Febuary 21.
***We will not have lecture on Wednesday; however, I encourage you to still come to class and work on HW4 together. Despite what I said before, there will be no video. Use this time to work on the assignment and prepare for upcoming exam.
Tuesday's class: Re-introduced the definition of a group. We discusses numerous examples and proved several propositions regarding the basic properties of groups (e.g. uniqueness of the identity element, uniquness of inverses, left/right-cancellation laws).
Announcement: On Exam 1, you may bring one sheet of notes written on the front and back on an 8.5"x11" of paper.
Week 4 (Week of February 13)
Helpful reading: Section 3.1
CUNY was closed on Monday.
Wednesday's Class: Introduced modular arithmetic and its basic properties.
Next week's schedule: No class Monday (CUNY closed), class on Tuesday (CUNY on Monday schedule), no class meeting on Wednesday (I will post a video).
Week 3 (Week of February 6)
Helpful reading: Section 2.1, Section 2.2, and Section 3.1
Monday's Class: Proved the first principle of mathematical induction, went over a basic induction proof, and introduced the second principle of mathematical induction. Proved Euclid's lemma, showed that every natural number greather than 1 is either a prime number or a product of prime numbers, and that there are infinitely many prime numbers
Wednesday's Class: Proved the fundamental theorem of arithmetic. Introduced equivalence relations and equivalence modulo n.
Week 2 (Week of January 30)
Helpful reading: Section 2.1 and Section 2.2.
Monday's Class: Defined a group and discusses several basic examples. Began our introduction to elementary number theory and began the proof of the division algorithm.
Wednesday's Class: Finished proving the division algorithm. Defined prime numbers, common divisors, and the greatest common divisor. Proved that the GCD is a linear combination. Introduced/proved the Euclidean algorithm for computing GCD, and discussed how it can be used to write the GCD as a linear combination.
Week 1 (Week of January 23)
Wednesday's Class: Investigated "clock arithmetic" and rigid motions of an equilateral triangle; Defined binary operation.
If you need a refresher on some basic set theory notions, you can look over the Set Theory subsection of Section 1.2 in the course text.