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Course: Math 830, Abstract Algebra I
Time and Place: MWF 1:00 - 1:50pm, Snow Hall 152
Format of the course: Unless the university changes its current policy, the lectures will be delivered at our official meeting time in Snow 152. Copies of the lectures will be uploaded to our course webpage and to our course Blackboard page. All supplemental material will appear on both our course webpage and our Blackboard page.
Description: The course will focus primarily on group theory and field theory. In fact, the main goal of the course is to present the equivalence of the solvability of an algebraic equation by radicals with the solvability of the Galois group determined by the equation. If time permits, we will show that the inverse Galois problem has a positive solution for abelian groups and symmetric groups.
Text: None required, though the text Abstract Algebra by Dummit and Foote is an excellent source for the material we plan to cover. Older texts like Algebra by S. Lang and Algebra by Hungerford are also good sources.
Instructor: Professor D. Katz
Office: Snow Hall 501
Office Hours: MWF 2:00 - 3:00pm and by appointment. Please feel free to schedule a meeting or send an email whenever you have questions about the course or questions about problems on a homework assignment.
E-mail: dlk53 AT ku dot edu
Class Notes: Class Notes
Homework Assignments: There will be biweekly (fortnightly) homework assignments beginning the week of September 6. You may discuss homework problems with your fellow classmates. However, I would like to ask that each person in the class write up the final version of each assignment on their own. Homework should be scanned and submitted via Blackboard. There are some nice scanning apps that can be downloaded to your phone for free that will enable you to use your phone to convert camera shots of documents into a pdf file. This will use a lot less space than a typical jpeg file.
Solutions to Homework 1, Solutions to Homework 2, Solutions to Homework 3, Solutions to Homework 4
Course Grading: Your total HW score will count 75 percent of your final grade. There will also be an in-class final exam counting 25 percent of your final grade.
Final Exam Date: Tuesday, December 15, 10:30am -1:00pm.
Supplementary Material:
Solving cubics and quartics by radicals
A family of finite simple groups
Solomon's expository article on the classification of finite groups
Students with disability
The KU Office of Disability Resources (DR) coordinates accommodations and services for all eligible students with disabilities. If you have a disability and wish to request accommodations and have not contacted DR, please do so as soon as possible. Their office is located in 22 Strong Hall; their phone number is 785-864-2620 (V/TTY). Information about their services can be found at www.disability.ku.edu. Please also contact me privately in regard to your needs in this course.
Policy on religious observances
Any student who has a conflict between the course schedule and a religious holiday
should contact the instructor as soon as possible.