Syllabus

Instructor: Ramin Naimi. Fowler 317. Office Hours: by appointment.

Text: There is no required textbook. I will hand out class notes and also post them on our class website. I will also occasionally assign homework problems from the book by V. Prasolov, Intuitive Topology. This is a good book, and I encourage you to purchase it, but you don't have to; I will give handouts containing the assigned problems. If you do end up buying the book, make sure to resist the temptation to look at the solutions as long as you can. I also recommend James R. Munkres, Topology, which is an excellent and classic textbook on point-set topology. Here are two books available online (I have not read them and I don't know if they are good): Topology Wikibook Aisling McCluskey and Brian McMaster

Topics: metric spaces; continuity in metric space; topological spaces; connectness; compactness; homeomorphism and topological invariants; product and quotient spaces; manifolds; embeddings, isotopy, connected sums of manifolds; classification of compact surfaces; orientability; homotopy, paths, loops, knots, and links.

Homework: HW will be assigned in every class meeting, due at the next class meeting. I encourage you to work with your classmates and/or get help from me or the CAE on problems you can't do. But be honest with yourself; after figuring out how to do a problem, ask yourself: "Will I be able to do this problem on my own if it's on the exam?" To find out, turn in your own work: write it up without looking at the book or at any notes. The purpose of HW is not for me to evaluate you, but for you to learn the material and evaluate yourself. The grader won't have enough time to grade all the assigned problems. Those that get graded will be graded strictly, but the scores will not be recorded. Instead, as long as you show a sincere effort on the whole homework assignment, you will receive full credit for that assignment. Doing HW is essential to learning mathematics -- there is no way around it. You should spend at least two to three hours on homework every other day.

Midterms: There will be two exams, on the following dates (subject to change with prior notice): W 2/18 and W 4/1.

Final: The final exam date and time is determined by the Registrar's Office (www.oxy.edu/Registrar.xml). Please check to make sure you do not have any time conflicts with this date and time (or any early travel plans); I do not give early or late finals. The final exam will cover all topics covered during the semester.

Make-ups: No make-up exams will be given. If you miss a midterm with a valid excuse (e.g., a medical reason), and provide documentation for it, that midterm will simply not count for you—instead, your other midterms and final exam will count proportionally more. This policy does not apply to the final exam.

Grading: Your grade for the semester will be computed according to the following percentages: Homework 5%; Midterms 50%; Final 45%.

Attendance: You are responsible for everything that goes on in every class meeting, such as announcements, handouts, taught topics that are not in the class notes, etc. This means even if you miss a class for a valid reason, it is your responsibility to contact me and find out what you missed.

E-mail: When necessary, I will make announcements via the class mailing list, instead of in the classroom. I expect you to check your email at least once a day. Feel free to use our class email list, math362-L@oxy.edu, to send messages to everyone in the class.

Academic Honesty: I feel strongly about protecting honest and hard-working students against unfair and dishonest actions sometimes committed by a few. I don't give warnings; I refer all suspicious cases to the Judicial Examiner without hesitation.

Students with learning disability: Please see me and the CAE to arrange for any special needs.