Mathematics
Te Tari Pāngarau me te Tatauranga
Department of Mathematics & Statistics

## MATH342 Modern Algebra

 First Semester
18 points

Modern algebra is studied all over the world, perhaps not surprising in view of its international beginnings in the late 1700s work of the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, the French mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange, and the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Their work led to the introduction in the 1800s of the unifying abstract algebraic concepts of a group and a ring, the first of these pioneered by the British algebraist Arthur Cayley, the second due to Richard Dedekind, also German. These two notions of a group (a set with a standard operation, usually called multiplication) and a ring (a set with two operations, usually called addition and multiplication) occur throughout modern mathematics in both its pure and applied branches and, even after more than 100 years since their introduction, most of today’s research in modern algebra involves the study of either groups or rings (or both!)

### Paper details

The learning aims of the paper are principally to develop the notions of a group and ring, to see how these arise in a variety of mathematical settings, and to establish their fundamental properties. Since this is a Pure Mathematics paper which will provide the basis for further study in abstract algebra, concepts will be introduced and developed rigorously. We will be doing a lot of proofs!

### Potential students

This paper should be of interest to anyone who wishes to see how algebraic properties arising in different branches of pure mathematics can be described using the unifying concepts of a group and a ring.

Students who wish to pursue their interests in algebra should take this course as a foundation to more advanced papers in the theory of groups, Galois Theory, rings, modules and algebras.

MATH 202

### Main topics

• A review of functions; equivalence relations; modular arithmetic.
• Groups; subgroups; homomorphism and isomorphism; cosets and normal subgroups; quotient groups; Lagrange’s theorem; Application - Public key cryptography.
• Rings; subrings; integral domains; matrix rings; polynomial rings; homomorphism and isomorphism; ideals; quotient rings; fields; vector spaces; Application - Error correcting codes.

### Required text

No required text - Comprehensive Course notes will be provided.

### Lecturer

Professor Mike Hendy, Room 517

### Lectures

Monday at 10:00, Wednesday at 11:00 and alternate Fridays at 11:00. (Location to be announced.)

### Tutorial

Thursday at 9.00am in room MA241.

### Internal Assessment

There will be 5 exercises making up 50% of the internal assessment. You will be encouraged to use the mathematical formatting language LaTeX for your assignments. A link for uploading on your assignments electronically is available on the resources page. Paper submissions are also possible in the Math342 posting box. Assignments must be submitted by 4pm on the due date.

The remaining 50% of internal assessment will come from two 45 minute written tests.

Test 1, on chapters 1 & 2, will be held on Friday April 13;

Test 2, on chapters 3 & 4, will be held on Friday May 11.

### Exam format

The final examination is 3 hours long. It will comprise 20 T/F questions, 6 computational questions and 6 theoretical questions.

### Final mark

Your final mark F in the paper will be calculated according to this formula:

F = max(0.85E + 0.075A + 0.075T, 0.70E + 0.15A + 0.15T)

where:

• E is the Exam mark
• A is the Assignments mark
• T is the Tests mark

and all quantities are expressed as percentages.

Thus your internal assessment contributes either 15% or 30% towards your final mark.

### Students must abide by the University’s Academic Integrity Policy

Academic integrity means being honest in your studying and assessments. It is the basis for ethical decision-making and behaviour in an academic context. Academic integrity is informed by the values of honesty, trust, responsibility, fairness, respect and courage.

Academic misconduct is seeking to gain for yourself, or assisting another person to gain, an academic advantage by deception or other unfair means. The most common form of academic misconduct is plagiarism.

Academic misconduct in relation to work submitted for assessment (including all course work, tests and examinations) is taken very seriously at the University of Otago.

All students have a responsibility to understand the requirements that apply to particular assessments and also to be aware of acceptable academic practice regarding the use of material prepared by others. Therefore it is important to be familiar with the rules surrounding academic misconduct at the University of Otago; they may be different from the rules in your previous place of study.

Any student involved in academic misconduct, whether intentional or arising through failure to take reasonable care, will be subject to the University’s Student Academic Misconduct Procedures which contain a range of penalties.

If you are ever in doubt concerning what may be acceptable academic practice in relation to assessment, you should clarify the situation with your lecturer before submitting the work or taking the test or examination involved.

Types of academic misconduct are as follows:

#### Plagiarism

The University makes a distinction between unintentional plagiarism (Level One) and intentional plagiarism (Level Two).

• Although not intended, unintentional plagiarism is covered by the Student Academic Misconduct Procedures. It is usually due to lack of care, naivety, and/or to a lack to understanding of acceptable academic behaviour. This kind of plagiarism can be easily avoided.
• Intentional plagiarism is gaining academic advantage by copying or paraphrasing someone elses work and presenting it as your own, or helping someone else copy your work and present it as their own. It also includes self-plagiarism which is when you use your own work in a different paper or programme without indicating the source. Intentional plagiarism is treated very seriously by the University.

#### Unauthorised Collaboration

Unauthorised Collaboration occurs when you work with, or share work with, others on an assessment which is designed as a task for individuals and in which individual answers are required. This form does not include assessment tasks where students are required or permitted to present their results as collaborative work. Nor does it preclude collaborative effort in research or study for assignments, tests or examinations; but unless it is explicitly stated otherwise, each students answers should be in their own words. If you are not sure if collaboration is allowed, check with your lecturer..

#### Impersonation

Impersonation is getting someone else to participate in any assessment on your behalf, including having someone else sit any test or examination on your behalf.

#### Falsiﬁcation

Falsiﬁcation is to falsify the results of your research; presenting as true or accurate material that you know to be false or inaccurate.

#### Use of Unauthorised Materials

Unless expressly permitted, notes, books, calculators, computers or any other material and equipment are not permitted into a test or examination. Make sure you read the examination rules carefully. If you are still not sure what you are allowed to take in, check with your lecturer.

#### Assisting Others to Commit Academic Misconduct

This includes impersonating another student in a test or examination; writing an assignment for another student; giving answers to another student in a test or examination by any direct or indirect means; and allowing another student to copy answers in a test, examination or any other assessment.

Further information

While we strive to keep details as accurate and up-to-date as possible, information given here should be regarded as provisional. Individual lecturers will confirm teaching and assessment methods.

..., 1736-1813, was born in Italy although his family was originally from France. In 1766 he went to St. Petersburg, Russia, at the following request of Tsar Frederick the Great: “The greatest king in Europe wishes to have at his court the greatest mathematician in Europe”. He stayed there until Frederick’s death in 1788, moving to Paris at the invitation of King Louis XIV. Lagrange’s Theorem about the size of subgroups of a finite group is one of the most important results in algebra.

In 1833, the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton gave one of the first algebraic descriptions of the set of complex numbers. Of course, each complex number can be described as a sum a + ib where a and b are real numbers and i is the “imaginary” number with the property that its square is -1. Also such a number can be thought of as the point on the two-dimensional x-y plane with a as its x-coordinate and b as its y-coordinate. Now, Hamilton tried for ten years to find a similar way of algebraically describing three-dimensional space. On October 6, 1843, while out walking in Dublin, he finally realized that there was no algebraic three-dimensional analogue but that there was a four-dimensional one. He formed a new set of numbers called the quaternions in which there are four key ingredient numbers, namely 1, $i$, $j$, and $k$, satisfying the following multipicative rules:
$$i^2=j^2=k^2=-1\\ij = k, jk = i, ki = j,\\ji = -k, kj = -i, ik = -j$$ Hamilton was so pleased with his discovery that he stopped on his walk to carve these equations with a knife into the sandstone of Brougham Bridge (see Irish stamp above). The quaternions give us important examples of both a group and a division ring.