First day handout for Mathematical Communication and Technology (Math 696)

About the course

This course discusses methods of communicating mathematics, with emphasis on computer techniques. The course is intended primarily, but not exclusively, for entering graduate students in the Department of Mathematics at Texas A&M University.

Note that this course does not cover the use of hand-held calculators: that topic is dealt with in Math 489 (Special Topics in Mathematics and Technology).

The official course catalogue gives the following description of the course.

Techniques of oral, written, and electronic communication of mathematics; effective classroom and seminar presentation; TeX, AMS-TeX and LaTeX; hypertext; Internet application; Maple and Mathematica; classroom use of computer graphics.

Course Goals

At the conclusion of the course, you should have the following skills:

• be able to prepare a mathematical paper in LaTeX (the de facto standard format for modern mathematical word processing);
• be able to perform symbolic, numerical, and graphical mathematical manipulations with Maple (one of the major systems for doing mathematics on the computer, and a standard at Texas A&M);
• be able to find and post mathematical and pedagogical information on the Internet and World-Wide Web;
• be able to prepare mathematical presentations with attention to good style, clarity of exposition, and level appropriate to the intended audience;
• be able to integrate all of the above techniques.

Textbook

You should purchase the following book:

Leslie Lamport, LaTeX: A Document Preparation System, second edition, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1994.

We will also make extensive use of the calculus laboratory manual, but you do not need to buy a copy because the Mathematics Department will lend you one for the duration of the semester. This book is:

Albert Boggess et al., , Brooks/Cole, Pacific Grove, CA, 1995.

Prerequisites

Mathematics

Since you are going to be studying techniques for communicating mathematics, it is essential that you know some mathematics already! At a minimum, you need to know calculus.

Computers

I will not assume that you have previous experience with computers. We will be working under the UNIX operating system with the X-Windows graphical user interface. All students in the class will be provided accounts on the mathematics department calclab machines. Graduate students registered in the mathematics department are also entitled to accounts on the main mathematics server (fourier, laplace, mellin); all students are entitled to accounts on the University's general access UNIX machine tam2000.

Class meetings

The class meets once a week, on Wednesday evening, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. The initially scheduled room was Blocker 130, but we will typically meet down the hall in Blocker 126.

Class will not meet on November 27, 1996 (the evening before Thanksgiving). There is no scheduled final examination.

Grading

Grades will be based on in-class work (20%), homework (20%), and projects (60%). The grading scale is A = did all of the work well; B = did all of the work adequately; C = did most of the work; F = failed to complete a substantial amount of the required work.

Contacting the instructor

The best way to contact me is via electronic mail to boas@tamu.edu (Harold P. Boas). My office telephone number is (409) 845-7269. My office is room 322 of Milner Hall. During fall 1996, I have office hours Monday from 3:00-4:00 PM, Wednesday from 1:00-2:00 PM, and Thursday from 1:00-2:00 PM; and also by appointment.

Comments to Harold P. Boas.
Created Aug 28, 1996.