Mathematics (MATH) |
202 Fenton, 541-346-4705
College of Arts & Sciences
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M - Major, minor, pre-major, or concentration restrictions. If restricted by date, click on CRN to see effective dates; courses with no date are restricted through the registration deadline. Contact the academic department for additional information.
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Course Data
| MATH 201 Algebra Math Lab |
2.00 cr. |
| Exploratory course in mathematics. Course focuses on techniques of mathematical exploration and discovery, the language of mathematics, and foundational issues. Topics from algebra. |
| Grading Options: |
Pass/No Pass Only for all students
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| Instructor: |
Vaintrob A |
Office:
322 Fenton Hall
Phone:
(541) 346-4734
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Only Open to Majors:
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Mathematics
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| Course Materials |
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CRN |
Avail |
Max |
Time |
Day |
Location |
Instructor |
Notes |
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23495 |
4 |
25 |
1100-1200 |
mw |
00 REMOTE |
Vaintrob A |
M |
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Academic Deadlines
| Deadline |
Last day to: |
| January 3: |
Process a complete drop (100% refund, no W recorded) |
| January 9: |
Drop this course (100% refund, no W recorded; after this date, W's are recorded) |
| January 9: |
Process a complete drop (90% refund, no W recorded; after this date, W's are recorded) |
| January 10: |
Process a complete withdrawal (90% refund, W recorded) |
| January 10: |
Withdraw from this course (100% refund, W recorded) |
| January 11: |
Add this course |
| January 11: |
Last day to change to or from audit |
| January 17: |
Process a complete withdrawal (75% refund, W recorded) |
| January 17: |
Withdraw from this course (75% refund, W recorded) |
| January 24: |
Process a complete withdrawal (50% refund, W recorded) |
| January 24: |
Withdraw from this course (50% refund, W recorded) |
| January 31: |
Process a complete withdrawal (25% refund, W recorded) |
| January 31: |
Withdraw from this course (25% refund, W recorded) |
| February 21: |
Withdraw from this course (0% refund, W recorded) |
 | You can't drop your last class using the "Add/Drop" menu in DuckWeb. Go to the “Completely Withdraw from Term/University” link to begin the complete withdrawal process. If you need assistance with a complete drop or a complete withdrawal, please contact the Office of Academic Advising, 101 Oregon Hall, 541-346-3211 (8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday). If you are attempting to completely withdraw after business hours, and have difficulty, please contact the Office of Academic Advising the next business day. |
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Expanded Course Description
| Reading a book like “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” is fairly straightforward: each sentence conveys a direct idea on what a char- acter did, said, or thought, and these ideas fit together easily to make a simple story. Reading a play by Shakespeare is quite different: sentences can convey multiple ideas at once, characters can say one thing and mean another, and the stories have layers upon layers of meaning. Reading Shakespeare takes training and practice.
Reading mathematics, and learning mathematics, is a lot like reading Shakespeare. One doesn’t just sit down and read each sentence, and have the ideas fit together easily. One has to find the deeper meaning in the sentences, and carefully put together the story that they are trying to tell. This is difficult, and sometimes frustrating, but learning to do it opens up a wonderful and exciting world.
In this course we will read some mathematics together. We will talk about ways to make sense of what you read, and we will do a lot of exploring. Some of the skills we will focus on are: trying examples, looking for patterns, making conjectures, testing conjectures, and modifying conjectures. These might sound easy, but when you are reading mathematics you need to be constantly doing all five of these things! It takes practice.
You of course know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. These are examples of binary operations, in this case operations that one usually performs on numbers. There turn out be multitudes of binary operations in mathematics—once you start looking for them, they are everywhere. We will learn about some of these this quar- ter! Just as you do algebra when working with numbers, you can do algebra with operations in other settings too. This opens up a whole area of mathematics called group theory. Group theory has applications to physics and chemistry, but in this course we will focus on only one application: to understanding the Rubik’s Cube. |
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