LECTURER
Dr. Andrew D. Loveless
aloveles@math.washington.edu
Office: Padelford C-339
Office hours: Click Here
EXAM DATES
Midterm 1: Friday, July 16
Midterm 2: Friday, August 6
Final Exam: Friday, August 20
OLD EXAMS
The following link will take you to an archive of past exams and solutions:
Exam Archive
Welcome!
Most course materials can be found at the right of the page. If you have a question, please contact me or your TA, directly or by e-mail.
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Announcements:
- Announced 8/13/2010: Note the following postings:
- Chapter 7 Short Review: A listing of the basic facts from Chapter 7 (some of these will not be covered until Monday)
- Homework 5a: This is never due, but you are expected to work through it before the final. Most of HW5a is a practice sheet showing and reminder you what is allowed with congruences.
- Solutions for HW 5a have been posted, but you should attempt the problems on your own first.
- Final Exam Review and Closing Comments: The first page gives a short checklist to help you organize the topics in your studying, the other pages make comments about the course and where to go from here.
- Announced 8/2/2010: Here are more postings. Note that Exam 2 is Friday. It will cover Chapters 3-6.
- Chapter 6 Review: For exam 2, you can ignore the "linear diophantine equations" and the "fundamental theorem of arithmetic". So you need to know the four basic definitions from the top of the review, you need to know "Basic Proof Tips" numbers 1 and 2, and you need to know "Important Results" numbers 1-5. In particular, you sould be able to do all the problems from HW 4a.
- All homework solutions so far (including HW 4) will be up by this afternoon.
- Remember to be working through the exams in the Exam Archive. There is a question or two from a couple exams that may be from material we will cover later in Chapter 6. If you come across such a question, you can ask me if you need to study it.
- Announced 7/29/2010: Here are some new postings:
- As mentioned in class, I intend to only spend a brief few moments on Chapter 5 in order to pick up a couple tools that we will use later. I am assuming that most everyone has a basic familiarity with these functions, but here are some lecture notes on Chapter 5 that you should read to familiarize yourself, I handed this out on Wednesday.
- Also here is a much briefer review of Chapter 5.
- In addition, here is a supplemental (not required) lecture on the pigeonhole principle.
- Announced 7/20/2010: Note the following postings:
- A detailed overview of Chapter 4. This review has more information than the basic Ch. 4 review I handed out on Monday.
- Homework 4 has been posted and will be handed out today in class.
- Solutions for HW 3 will be posted over the weekend on the Shared Space.
- If you missed the discussion the of exam, you can pick up your exam from me before or after class (I will have it with me). And here is the exam information:
- The exam and the solutions have been added to my exam archive.
- The exam statistics are:
- MEDIAN: 67 out of 80 (83.8 percent).
- QUARTILES: 55, 67, 74 out of 80 (68.8, 83.8 and 92.5 percent), so a fourth of the class got at or above 92.5 percent!
- ROUGHLY A FEW BULLET POINTS FOR THE CORRESPONDING GRADES ARE:
74 out of 80 --> 3.7
67 out of 80 --> 2.8
55 out of 80 --> 1.6
You can see your grade here.
- Remember that we have not complete very many points, so you can still greatly impact your grade (it is very possible to go from a 1.5 now to a 3.7 at the end of the quarter), but you will need to make sure to do well on the homework, do some challenge problems, and do well on the other exams. For many people new to proofs, the first exam in this class is a shock because they are used to getting higher grades on math exams, but don't despair. Often these people did study the exams in the archive, but they didn't get the significance of various steps as they read through the posted solutions. The good news is now you know how an exam goes and you will have a better idea of what you need to do to succeed. It is fairly typical for there to be good improvement on the second exam from those that are currently in the lower end of the gradescale who adjust their approach to the class.
- Announced 7/2/2010: Note the following postings:
- A basic overview of Chapter 2.
- Full written out solutions to 2.44(b), 2.50(c), 2.51(b), and 2.52 are posted in the Math 300 A, B Shared Space (UWNetID required). Please look at these. I want you to mimic the method of proof in these postings to complete the assigned problems 2.44c, 2.50b, 2.51a, and 2.53.
- Full solutions to homework 1 are posted in the Math 300 A, B Shared Space. You are required to read the full solutions and compare them with your work.
- Your first homework assignment will be handed back at class on Wednesday. I have posted the scores for you to access through my grades page. Please read all announcements on the grade page before viewing your grade.
- Announced 6/28/2010: Homework Assignment 2 has been posted on the homework page. Homework assignments and full solutions will also be posted on the website: https://catalysttools.washington.edu/sharespaces/space/aloveles/10569. Solutions for homework will appear within a day or so after you hand it in. You will need your UWNetID and password to log in to see the solutions, the first set of solutions will appear by Thursday. Let me know if you run into difficulty (this is my first time using catalyst shard documents).
- Announced 6/22/2010: If you are struggling or just want some more examples, please, please, please come to office hours. In addition, for those of you looking for supplemental reading on proofs or want a few more examples to look at, I encourage you to try the following other books:
- An introduction to mathematical reasoning - Eccles, Peter J. ; Odegaard Reserve QA9.54.E23.1997
- How to read and do proofs - Solow, Daniel ; Math Stacks QA9.54.S65.2005
- Proofs and fundamentals - Bloch, Ethan ; Math Stacks QA9.54.B57.2000
- An introduction to mathematical thinking - Gilbert, William ; Math Stacks QA10.G55.2005
- And you can find many more by searching for "Proof Theory" in the library catalog.
Also, here are a few websites (a word of caution: I have not carefully reviewed every part of all of the sites or books listed, so use them only as a secondary reference):
- Announced 6/20/2010: Welcome to Math 300.
Your first task is to get the textbook at the bookstore. Then I suggest you explore the links at the right of the page. I will be posting several helpful review sheets and homework hints throughout the quarter, so check back frequently.