Math 185: Introduction to Complex Analysis
Section 6 (41609), Spring 2018

Contents of this page

News
Lecture time and location
Prerequisite
Office hours
GSI
Text
Syllabus
Course plan
Exams
Grading policy
Handouts
Homework
Piazza

News

All class discussion has moved to the Piazza class page.

(1/19) Homework 1 and reading assignment for next week have been posted.

(1/13) Welcome to the web page of Math 185 for Spring 2018!


Lecture time and location

TuTh 11:00-12:29 in 3107 Etcheverry


Prerequisite

Math 104


Office hours

Tuesdays 9:30-11:00, Thursdays 1:30-3:00 and by appointment. At other times I will be answering questions on Piazza.


GSI

The GSI for this course will be Bryan Gillespie (bgillespie@berkeley.edu). His office hours are:


Text

Required: Donald Sarason, Complex Function Theory, American Mathematical Society, second edition, ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-4428-1
Other recommended books:


Syllabus

Analytic functions of a complex variable. Cauchy's integral theorem, power series, Laurent series, singularities of analytic functions, the residue theorem with application to definite integrals. Some additional topics such as conformal mapping.
Course outline


Course plan

The plan is to cover most of Sarason's book, so the class will be relatively fast paced. Each week I will assign the reading for the following week, which you are required to do ahead of class. You are welcome to supplement your reading by looking at other sources such as the books recommended above.

# Week of Reading
1 1/16 Chapter 1
2 1/23 Sections II.1-II.8
3 1/30 Sections II.9-II.16, III.1-III.5


Exams

There will be two in-class midterms and a final exam. The exam schedule:
Midterm 1: Thursday, February 22
Midterm 2: Thursday, April 5
Final exam: Thursday, May 10, 8:00 AM -11:00 AM
No make-up exams will be given. Note that the grading policy allows (though not encourage) you to miss one midterm exam.

Disabled students requiring accommodations should contact the Disabled Students' Program.


Grading policy

The final grade will consist of four components:

Homework 20%
First midterm 20%
Second midterm 20%
Final 40%.

Each of the above four grades will be curved into a number on a consistent scale.

Your lowest midterm grade will be replaced by the curved final exam grade if it is higher.

The four curved grades will be added up and converted into a final course grade.

Curving means that the difficulty of exams does not affect your grade: if an exam is extremely difficult (highly unlikely), then a lower score will be sufficient to get an A, while if an exam is very easy (also unlikely), you might need a very high score to get an A. After each midterm you will be given the letter grade cutoffs.

Please note: incomplete grades, according to university policy, can be given only if unantipicated events beyond your control (e.g. a medical emergency) make it impossible for you to complete the course, and if you are otherwise passing (with a C or above).


Handouts

None yet.


Homework

There will be weekly homework assignments. You are welcome to work on the homework collaboratively but I expect you to write your solutions in your own words. I also encourage you to discuss homework questions on Piazza.

# Due date Assignment
1 1/25 Exercises I.4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 8.1, 8.2, 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, and 11.4
2 2/1 Exercises II.3.1 part (iii), II.6.1, II.6.2, II.6.3, II.8.1, II.16.1, II.16.4, II.16.5.


Piazza

To handle questions posed outside of class, we will be using Piazza, a free platform for instructors and GSIs to efficiently manage out-of-class Q&A. On the class dashboard, students can post questions and collaborate Wikipedia-style to edit responses to these questions. Instructors can also answer questions, endorse student answers, and edit or delete any posted content. Instead of emailing me math questions, I encourage you to post them to Piazza. One of many great things about Piazza is that it supports LaTeX.

Each student will be invited to join Piazza by email. Please join it as soon as you can, as I plan to use Piazza extensively. I will not be using bCourses (unless convinced otherwise).

Instead of sending me email, please create a post on Piazza with your question or concern. Private or anonymous post are fine, though they should be used rarely.

Top answerers on Piazza will receive extra credit.


Last modified: Wed Feb 21 20:02:49 PST 2018