MAT 511, Fall 2020
MAT 511, Fall 2020
Instructor: Andrew Hanlon
Office Hours: Tuesdays 5 - 6pm and Wednesdays 11:30am-12:30pm online via Zoom and accessed by Zoom personal meeting here or on Blackboard.
Math Learning Center Hours: Thursdays 5-6 pm via Zoom and accessed from the MLC website.
Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays 6:30 - 7:50 pm in 101 Javits (Note the change) and available to stream by Zoom here or on Blackboard.
Syllabus: The course syllabus is available here and on Blackboard.
Textbook: R. Hammack, Book of Proof, Third edition
Piazza: We have a Piazza discussion board for this class. Here is the signup link. Please use this to ask questions and discuss the class with each other. You can also use it to plan Zoom meetings to talk with each other. If you have a question, don't be shy - you are likely not the only one! I hope this will help to make up for the loss of some of the communal aspect of the course due to the pandemic.
Final Exam: Take-home exam. Due Thursday, December 10th by 8:00 pm (New York time).
Each student will be required to give a lecture to the class. You will lecture for the first half (~40 minutes) of the class period on the day of your student lecture. I will lecture the rest of the time. I will send you the topics that you are expected to cover the week beforehand, and we can meet virtually before your lecture if you desire. You will be graded according to the following rubric.
You will also be required to provide feedback to the other students on their lecture. You will complete this form and submit it on Blackboard.
The following statistics were computed from the first 7 assignments by dropping the lowest score so that the total possible points is 150.
Mean: 140 Maximum: 146 Quartile 1: 134 Median: 141 Quartile 3: 143
Homework is due in Blackboard on the day indicated below before 11:59 pm New York time. Please submit each homework as a single pdf file. See syllabus above for grading information and other homework policies.
The specific topics covered in each class are tentative and will be updated as the semester progesses.
Math Learning Center - through Zoom.
It is highly recommended to solve as many exercises from the textbook or other resources as you have time for. This will be more useful than rereading your class notes or textbook as it will often force you to go back to look at definitions and theorems anyway. The only way to truly learn proof-based mathematics is through practice. Feel free to ask about your solutions (use Piazza!).
Previous MAT 511 webpages are available on the math department webpage. These may be another good source of exercises and practice exams.
Other textbooks: The Art of Proof by Matthias Beck & Ross Geoghegan