Number Theory – Mathematics 0420
Brown University – Spring, 2008
Professor Joseph Silverman
| Text | A Friendly Introduction to Number Theory (3rd edition) by Joseph H. Silverman, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0131861379 |
|---|---|
| Office | Mathematics Department, Kassar House, Room 202 |
| Phone | 863-1124 |
| jhs@math.brown.edu | |
| Web Site | www.math.brown.edu/~jhs/MA0042/MA0042HomePage.html |
| Review Session |
I will run a review/Q & A session for the final exam: Thursday, May 8, 1:00–2:00pm, in the Math Dept – Kassar House 105. |
| Final Exam | The final exam is Friday, May 9, 9:00–12:00 in Barus-Holley 168 (Our regular classroom.) |
| Office Hours | Monday 10:00-10:50 and Friday 11:00 - 11:50, and by appointment. (Or just drop by. I tend to be in on MWF and not on TTh.) |
| Course Time | MWF 2:00-2:50 PM (G Hour) |
| Course Location | Barus Holley 168 |
| Recitation/ Homework Sessions |
Students should plan to attend one of the sessions each week.
Thursdays, 7:00–8:00pm, Barus-Holley 157 Sundays, 7:00–8:00pm, Barus-Holley 155 Except the session on Sunday Feb 3 is moved to Saturday Feb 2 (due to SuperBowl). [Same time and location as usual.] |
| Problem Sets |
NOTE:
The problem sets are challenging. Don't leave them until
the last minute! We will be moving rapidly. In order to learn the
material, it is very important to
DO THE HOMEWORK WHEN IT IS ASSIGNED.
RULES: Homework must be stapled. All problems must be clearly labeled. Late homework will not be accepted under any circumstances. (One or two missing homeworks is unlikely to affect your grade, and it's an imposition on the grader to have to go back and grade late homeworks.) |
| Note on Using Computers in Math 0420 | Computers are a useful tool that can be used to generate data for making conjectures and to perform computations that would be tedious to do by hand. However, they are not a replacement for understanding. So for example, we'll use computers to compute things like the greatest common divisor of two large numbers, but you should be sure that you understand how the computer is doing the computation. |
| Computer Package for Math 0420 |
I tend to use a computer program called PARI-GP to do
number theory calculations. The good news about PARI is that it is free
and very fast and powerful at doing number theoretic computations.
The bad news is that it's not tremendouly user friendly.
If you're computer savvy, you can download PARI here:
Click here to go to the PARI home page. Another way to use PARI to do short calculations is to use the SAGE web site. You'll need to create a (free) account. Then you'll be able to type one or more PARI commands and type Shift-Return to perform the computation.
As an alternative, I have written a web page number theory calculator
that you can use for Math 0420. It is not as versatile as PARI and
it can only handle numbers up to about 16 digits, but it is very
easy to use.
|
| Homework on the Web |
I will keep a list of reading and homework assignments on
the following web page:
Click here to go to the Math 0420 Web Homework Page. |
Dates to Remember: There will be two in-class hour exams and a final exam.
|
Hour Exam #1 |
Wednesday, February 27 |
In class |
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|
Hour Exam #2 |
Monday, April 7 |
In class |
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Final Exam |
Friday, May 9, 2008 |
Time 9:00am–noon |
Grading: The course grade will be determined on the following basis:
|
Problem Sets |
20% |
|
Hour Exams (22.5% each) |
45% |
|
Final Exam |
35% |
Syllabus: