Mathematics 251, Ring theory Fall 2009 CANCELLED

Professor: Richard Borcherds

Office hours: Tuesday, Thursday 2:00-3:30 927 Evans Hall

This class meets in 35 Evans Hall TuTh 9:30-11:00. The first lecture is on Thursday Aug 27, the last lecture is on Tuesday Dec 8, and there is a holiday on Nov 26. This is the course home page (address http://math.berkeley.edu/~reb/251/). The course control number is 54803

Catalogue Description: Mathematics 251

Course Format: Three hours of lecture per week.

Prerequisites: 250A.

Topics such as: Noetherian rings, rings with descending chain condition, theory of the radical, homological methods.

This course

Textbooks:

A first course in noncommutative rings by T. Y. Lam, second edition ISBN-13: 9780387951836 available from Amazon, DealOz, Abebooks. This books covers Wedderburn-Artin theory, Jacobson radicals, representation theory. prime and primitive rings, division rings, ordered structures in rings, local rings, and perfect rings. The course will cover however much of this there is time for.

Lam, T. Y. Exercises in classical ring theory (Google books). Problem Books in Mathematics. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1995. Second edition ISBN:9780387005003 This contains solutions to the exercises in the textbook.

Recommended Reading:

Lam, T. Y. Lectures on modules and rings. Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 189. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1999. ISBN:9780387984285. This is a sequel to the textbook.

Links related to the course:

Grading:

Grading will be based on homework.

Suggested homework (due Thursday the week after it is set):

Solutions to all exercises
  1. Aug 27 Introduction
  2. Sep 1 Section 1 problems 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 15, 20