Mathematics , Fall, 1997

Professor Ken Ribet

Office hours: Tuesday, 12:30-2 PM; Friday, 10-11:30 AM
885 Evans Hall
Office telephone: 642 0648
Fax number: 642 8204
Secretary: 642 5026
email: ribet@math.berkeley.edu

Our class meets in F295 Haas. My goal is to have a macchiato in Jimmy Bean's FIFO cafe many days before class begins. Please join me if you would like to chat about the course.

Teaching assistants:

Yossi Fendel, "office" hours Sunday and Tuesday, 1:45 - 3:15 pm at Caffe Mediterraneum (Telegraph between Haste and Dwight)
Devin Greene, office hours TW 2-3 and F 9-10 in Evans 848
Charles Holton, office hours MW 2-3 and F 11-12 in Evans 818
Loren Looger, office hours T 2-3:30 and W 1:30-3 in Evans 832
Omar Mirza, office hours T 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. in 1015 Evans, or by appointment: phone (510) 664 2794
Greg Nuckols, office hours MW 1-2 and Th 2:30-3:30 in Evans 741

Head TA (for enrollment questions only): Amod Agashe, amod@math.berkeley.edu

The first midterm exam was given on September 25 at 3:40 PM. Exam solutions may be downloaded in postscript form or picked up at Copy Central on Bancroft Street. You can still download (or get from Copy Central) the questions and answers to the midterm that I gave the last time that I taught the course (Spring, 1996).

The second midterm exam was given on October 30, 1997. To see how to do the problems, you need look no farther than the solution sheet which was prepared by Yossi Fendel.

Questions and answers to the second midterm from Spring, 1996 may still be downloaded or picked up at Copy Central. When looking at the old questions, remember that the 1996 exam was only 50 minutes long; ours will be 80 minutes long. Loren Looger prepared a fine review sheet, which was distributed in class on October 21. He also asked me to link to this page his Poker Hand Solutions, an analysis of the distributions of possible poker hands.

Final Exam

The final exam will be given on December 17 at 12:30PM in International House. A TA-generated list of review questions for the final exam was distributed in class on December 4. Solutions to my old final exam were prepared by Loren Looger. Loren also made up solutions to the review questions.

The exam is now history. If you're curious to look over my answers to the exam questions, feel free to do so. Happy Holidays to all!

Solutions to the homework assignments are made up each week and sent to Copy Central. Some of the solution sheets will be available electronically:

Solutions to the homework due September 3, 1997 in postscript format.
Solutions for the homework due September 17 in postscript format.
Solutions for the assignment due September 24 postscript format.
Solutions for the assignment due October 15 in postscript format.
Solutions for the assignment due October 29 in postscript format.
Solutions for the difficult assignment originally due November 3 in postscript format.

You can download postscript versions of the prepared slides that I have been projecting in lecture:

Disclaimer: I don't proofread these thoroughly!

The required text for the course is Discrete mathematics and its applications, third edition, by Kenneth H. Rosen. The book Elements of discrete mathematics (second edition) by C. L. Liu has been recommended for supplementary reading. We will also be using H. W. Lenstra, Jr.'s Probability theory notes, available as a postscript file or in Copy Central.

A large sement of this course is devoted to methods of counting:

For a day ahead of the dinner, the Meadowood kitchen sounded like the mathematics department at UC Berkeley as chefs counted and recounted their ingredients.

[San Francisco Focus, September, 1997 (page 101), describing the preparations for a Napa Valley wine auction dinner.]

Some of you have asked me about Fermat's Last Theorem. I'm the co-author of a short article on this subject in the current Scientfic American. Unfortunately, the text of our article is not on-line: you have to buy a physical copy of the magazine if you want a copy of the article.

Grading and Homework

Your grade in the course is based on the two midterm exams (15% each), the final exam (50%), and a TA-generated "classwork grade" (20%). The classwork grade depends on your quiz scores and homework record. Your TA will verify that you are working the assigned problems, but homework will be graded only sporadically.

While embarassingly many of my exam questions are unimaginative variants of problems in Rosen's book, my best problems are original and focus on key points which arise during the lectures.

First Midterm Exam: September 25
	Lecture Date	Homework problems	Due date
§ 1.1	August 26	1, 4, 7	August 27
§ 1.2	August 26	9, 10, 11, 18	September 3
§ 1.3	August 26	8, 9, 17	September 3
§ 1.4	August 26	3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12	September 3
§ 1.5	August 26	2, 4, 16, 20	September 3
§ 1.6	August 26	3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 17	September 3
§ 1.7	August 28	6, 9, 11, 12, 14	September 8
§ 1.8	August 28	2, 4 8, 9, 12, 14	September 8
§ 2.1	September 2	4, 6, 7, 10, 12, 17	September 10
§ 2.2	September 2	3, 4, 5, 7, 8	September 10
§ 2.3	September 4	9, 10, 12, 16, 19, 21, 22, 25, 30	September 10
§ 2.4	September 4	2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 14, 20, 24, 25	September 10
§ 2.5	September 9	2e, 2f, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 22, 32, 33	September 17
§ 2.6	September 11	5, 10, 15, 23	September 17
§ 3.1	September 11	3, 5, 11, 13, 15, 20, 42	September 17
§ 3.2	September 16	6, 7, 8, 10, 22, 32	September 24
§ 3.3	September 18	4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 16, 35	September 24
§ 3.4	September 18	3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13	September 24
§ 4.1	September 23	1, 8, 12, 16, 19, 22, 33	October 1
§ 5.4	September 30	4, 6, 8, 12, 18	October 6
§ 4.2	October 2	4, 7, 10, 15, 18, 20, 32	October 8
§ 4.3	October 2	8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 19, 27, 31	October 8
§ 4.6	October 7	2, 6, 8, 9, 16, 21	October 15
§ 5.5	October 9	2, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15	October 15
§ 4.4	October 14	5, 8, 14, 17, 32	October 22
§ 4.5	October 14	5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 17, 19	October 22
L.1	October 16	1-5	October 22
L.2	October 16	1-5	October 22
L.3	October 21	6-10	October 29
L.4	October 21		October 29
L.5	October 21		October 29
L.6	October 23	11-13, 15, 17, 21, 26	November 3
L.7	October 23		November 3
L.8	October 23		November 3
In-class TA-led review session: October 28
Ribet sighted in Cafe Strada on NOVA: October 28
Second Midterm Exam: October 30
§ 6.2	November 4	2, 4, 6	November 12
§ 6.3	November 4	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10	November 12
§ 6.5	November 6	2, 3, 5, 6, 12, 15, 19	November 12
§ 6.6	November 11	2, 4, 6, 7cd, 16, 20, 40	November 19
§ 7.1	November 13	4, 6, 8, 9, 11bc, 17	November 19
§ 7.2	November 13	2, 5, 6, 9, 18	November 19
§ 7.3	November 18	4, 8, 12, 21 36	November 26
§ 7.4	November 18	2, 11, 12, 14, 16	November 26
§ 7.5	November 20	2, 4, 9, 16, 17	November 26
§ 7.6	November 20	3, 4, 5 (for 3 and 4), 8, 9	November 26
§ 7.7	November 25	1, 2, 4, 12	December 3
Review and catching up: December 2-4
Final Exam: December 17 at 12:30 PM in International House (exam group 19)

Homework should be submitted in section.

Kenneth A. Ribet

, Math Department 3840, Berkeley CA 94720-3840

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