| Syllabus | Project Handout |
| Suggested Homework Problems | Links to Items of Interest |
| Tentative Class Schedule |
Announcements from Dr. Sellers:
Jan 5, 2006: Class will meet on Wednesday, Jan 11, as scheduled. However, I will not hold office hours on Wednesday afternoon, Jan 11, as I will be traveling to Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Pennsylvania Department of Education as part of a 2-day consulting group of state education officials, secondary teachers, and college professors who will discuss algebra at the secondary level. Also because of this, MATH 465 class will not meet on Friday, Jan 13. Students are encouraged to begin working on their projects to replace this hour of lecture.
Jan 5, 2006: Although the university is closed on Jan 16 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I will hold his regularly scheduled office hours that day.
Jan 6, 2005: CNN recently reported the discovery of the largest Mersenne prime known to this point. Click here to read the story.
Jan 7, 2005: A three-ring binder containing the solutions manual for our text has been placed on strict reserve in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences Library on the second floor of Davey Laboratory. As always, such a resource should be used wisely, but I thought it would be beneficial to make this available.
Jan 21, 2005: Click here to see a webpage which shows Sloane's submission page for sequence extensions. Note that you should not use this page to complete your submission. The only goal of putting this page together is to highlight those sections you should complete. I have highlighted the "Comments" section in case you want to share a note with Sloane (such as whether you had to correct some of the numbers that already exist in the sequence). Also, you want to check the box marked "nonn" if the sequence contains no negative numbers; check "sign" if the sequence does contain negative numbers.
Jan 22, 2005: IMPORTANT CHANGE to the tentative schedule! Please note that I have changed the date of the first midterm. It was originally scheduled for Monday, Feb 20. This is the Monday after THON. The exam is now officially moved to Wednesday, Feb 22 and this is reflected in our Tentative Class Schedule.
Mar 19, 2006: Neil Sloane is currently away from the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, so if you sent a sequence extension to him recently, you will need to wait several days before you see your update in the database. Also, I would encourage you not to procrastinate regarding the completion of your project. The only way you will receive full credit for its completion is for your name to appear on two sequences in the database. There is a bit of delay between the time you submit a sequence and the time your name appears; please don't wait too long to work on the project!
Mar 22, 2006: Here is an excerpt from Legendre's book Essai sur la Theorie des Nombres (1798) which shows that Legendre used the same notation for the Legendre symbol that we use today. (See also the reference in that excerpt for page 182 which clearly is about Wilson's Theorem!)
Mar 22, 2006: As noted in class, due to time constraints, you will not be responsible for the proof of the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity for our upcoming second midterm. However, you will definitely want to know the statement of the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity and you will want to be able to use it in order to calculate the values of Legendre symbols.
Mar 22, 2006: I have been invited to speak at a mathematics conference on Friday, April 7, 2006. Because of this, there will be no class that day. I would encourage you to use this time for your project (assuming you have not yet completed the project).
Apr 5, 2006: Reminder: No class this Friday! This is an excellent opportunity for those who have not completed the course project to do so (or at least begin to do so).
Apr 5, 2006: I have decided to set a deadline for when your name must appear in the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences in order for you to receive credit for your project. That deadline is Tuesday, May 2, 2006, at noon Eastern time. If your name has not appeared on your sequence(s) by then, you will not receive credit for your sequence(s). (If your name has appeared on one sequence but not a second, then you will receive credit for 5% of your overall grade.) With this in mind, it is imperative that you work on these sequences very soon! If you have any questions about the project, please contact me. Also, if your name has appeared in the database but you have not yet contacted me with this information, please do so soon via email.
Apr 5, 2006: The second midterms have been graded. The average on this exam was 74.7%, while the average on the first exam was 78.8%. I will return the exams in class today.
Apr 5, 2006: I was intrigued to learn just this morning that the 2005 USA Math Olympiad examination contained a question which is directly related to our discussions of Section 6.2, the section we will begin very soon! Check out problem 2 of that examination at this PDF link. You can then find the solution to problem 2 (and the whole exam) at this PDF link. (I am personally more fond of the first solution than the second, although there is nothing wrong with the second and it proves a slightly more general result!) More information about the USA Math Olympiad and other math competitions can be found here.
May 7, 2006: I have completed grading the final exams and can share some statistical data with you. The final exam average was 74.7% and the overall course average (once all project and quiz totals were calculated) was 81.2%.
May 7, 2006: I just want to thank you all for allowing me to teach MATH 465 to you this semester. I truly enjoyed the experience and trust it was beneficial to you. I wish you all the very best!