Instructor: Michael Stecher

Office: Milner 126 or Blocker 601K, 845-3269, stecher@math.tamu.edu

Office hours: TTh from 1:00 to 2:00 and W from 3:00 to 4:00 in Milner 126

Text: An Introduction to Abstract Mathmatics by Bond and Keane

Prerequisite: Math 172 (second semester calculus) or its equivalent.

We will cover most of Chapters 1 through 5, and parts of Chapter 7. Some additional material not included in the text will also be included..

Learning to read, write, and understand mathematics is the major goal of this course. Moreover since this is a W course, i.e., writing intensive, approximately 30% of your grade for the course will be based upon your ability to write in a clear, concise, understandable, and grammatically correct fashion.

There will be two exams (75 points each), a final exam (100 points), quizzes (100 points), and a paper (100 points) for a total of 450 points. Part of your grade on exams and quizzes will be based on writing. Semester grades will be decided in the usual fashion. That is, an A is 90% or better, a B is 80% or better, etc. One more caveat: university regulations stipulate that if you fail the writing portion of a W course, then you fail the course. For what it's worth I have never had a student fail the writing portion of this course. So in the time honored Aggie way this is now a tradition; let's not spoil it.

I have been advised that the univerisity requires me to state, on the handout for this course, that cheating is not allowed. Consider this so stated.

The final exam is scheduled for

The following is a tentative weekly schedule of what we will cover this semester. Additional material will be included and some of the material below may not be covered. The exam dates shown below are tentative; do not assume they are set in stone; the exact time of any exam is a function of where we are in the course.