MA 419 Basic Algebra 2018-19

Instructor: Prof. Manoj Kumar Kesari

Course Name: Basic Algebra ( MA 419 )

Course Type: Theory (Minor)

Credits: 8

Pre-requisites: None

Course Content: 

Group Theory:
groups, subgroups, cosets, homo-morphisms, isomorphisms, group action, Cayley's Theorem, p-groups, Sylow Theorems, etc. (Ch. 2 and Ch. 7 of Artin's book)

Ring Theory:
Rings, Polynomial Rings, homo-morphisms, ideals, quotient rings, product rings, Chinese Remainder Theorem, Euclidean Domains, Unique Factorization Domains, Fields etc.

Books:

Algebra (by Michael Artin)

Lectures:

The prof taught on the board. The teaching was fine. But the pace is very brisk. You have to be very attentive to grasp things. There was no attendance taken for most of the course.

Assignments:

There was just one assignment to submit written answers to 3 problems, which was given just one mark weightage in the total of 101. Tutorials were mostly questions from the back of the chapters of Artin's book. Tutorial session was held once a week where we could ask our doubts to the prof and the TAs or try and solve questions ourselves. The prof would occasionally solve some problems on the board. The tutorials were not graded.

Exams and Grading:

There were 4 quizzes (5 marks each) before midsem out of which best 3 were considered. Similarly there were 4 quizzes (5 marks each) after midsem out of which best 3 were considered. The midsem exam weighed 30 marks and the endsem exam weighed 40.

Online Useful Material:
For ring theory: Amit Roy's notes

Advanced Follow up Courses:
I am not aware of any.

Comment added by Editor: Courses like Algebra 1, Algebra 2 have it as a formal prerequisite. Algebraic Topology uses concepts built on group theory and also extra topics covered in topology course are better understood after this course.

Pro-Tips:

You have to be very regular to do well in this course. Difficulty level is much above average.

Personal Comments:
The course is a very very rough introduction to QFT, one must build up on this course to gain thorough knowledge of the very vast subject

Respondent: Manu