Office hours: by appointment. Come up before or after class and make sure that I write your name and a time to meet in my date book. If you are having any problems, questions or concerns please come in to talk about it. If you do not keep me informed I cannot help.

Extra meeting: One of the goals of this course is to teach everybody how to construct and write proofs. The best way to learn this is to actually see how a proof evolves i.e., the process of producing a proof. We will schedule one extra meeting per week (probably 5-7pm on Thursday afternoons) for discussing, learning, and absorbing the techniques of constructing good proofs. This way I can, in a slow relaxed setting, show you how its done.

Graduate student mentors: I will also be teaching the graduate level version of the same course (Math 741) concurrently. I will try to set up a bijective correspndence between the students in the 741 class with the 541 students so that you always have someone to go to for additional help/advice etc. This should be beneficial to the students in both classes, because (1) it will help the graduate students in Math 741 review and strengthen their Math 541 skills by having to explain it, and (2) it will give the Math 541 students another good (and personal) resource for learning and clarifying the material.

Text: There is no textbook for the course per se, as I do not lecture or choose problems from any single book. In preparing my lectures and choosing homework problems I, myself, will make heavy use of the following books:

Any combination of these books would be extremely helpful study tools. I strongly recommend the book by Artin (read it, study it, do problems from it, look things up in it, absorb it, osmose it, sleep with it under your pillow, and carry it with you everywhere you go).

Syllabus: The following is my general plan for the topics to be covered and the ordering which I have in my mind at the moment.

This accounts for 28 lectures (over 14 weeks) with some flexiblility and time for review sessions etc.

Grading: The term grade will be based on homework and the exams as follows: Homework: 25% Vocabulary quizzes: 25% Midterm: 25% Final Exam: 25%. Final grades are computed by totalling the points from the homework, the midterms and the final. Grade letters will be assigned with the following curve as a guideline: 20% A's, 30% B's, 30% C's, 20% D's and F's.

Homework: Homework will be due weekly. You will be required to find your own problems (from any of source of your choice) and provide careful solutions to the problems you submit. We may also set up a system by which you "grade" (i.e. mark and make suggestions on) homeworks of your fellow students--with the final grading process on each homework and the assigning of points done by me or the grader.

Vocabulary quizzes: One of the challenges when one is first starting to learn proof oriented mathematics, is to remember the rules of the game (the definitions). This EXTREMELY IMPORTANT part of doing proofs is easy since it is just regurgitation. To keep everybody in shape on this we will have a vocabulary quiz during the first 5 or 10 minutes of each class period (a 10 minute quiz on Tuesdays, and a 5 minute quiz on Thursdays).

Exams: There will be a midterm exam and a final. I (with the help of the students from Math 741) will compile a list of the homeowrk problems submitted. The exam problems will be chosen, verbatim, from these lists. The midterm exam will be in class on October 25. There will be a 2 hour final exam at 2:45pm on Wednesday December 19. The exams will be "regurgitation" from the notes handed out in class and the homework problems in Artin. The final will be cumulative.

Other notes: The Math Department Faculty Minority Liaison is Prof. Daniel Rider. He has information available concerning diversity and multicultural issues (e.g. support services, academic internships and grants/fellowships). He is also available to discuss minority students' concerns about mathematics courses. Prof. Rider can be reached at 263-3603, drider@math.wisc.edu or in 821 Van Vleck. See the web page at http;//www.math.wisc.edu/~drider/FML.html

Problem lists:

Downloading/printing. I have successfully dowloaded the homework at the computers in the Computer Lab in Van Vleck 101. This is a computer lab for students so please take advantage. You will need a red debit card to print in the Van Vleck 101 computer lab. Ask the consultants there in the lab where to find a machine to buy a debit card. The following information may also be helpful.

(1) .ps files can be sent directly to a postscript printer or viewed on the screen with a previewer such as Ghostview. Postscript printers are available in most campus computer labs, for example the Computer Lab in Van Vleck 101.

(2) .pdf files can usually be read with Acrobat reader. You can down load Acrobat Reader free from the following location: Free software from Adobe.

(3) In the Van Vleck 101 Computer Lab you can save the postscript file to the desktop and then open it. This will create an Acrobat file which you can then open and print. The consultant in the lab can also show you how to do this. They are very nice and helpful.