Welcome to Tom Roby's Math 4901 homepage! (Spring 2000)


(last updated: 18 April 2000)


Questions or Comments?


Class Information

Math 4901 (Senior Seminar) is designed to be a capstone experience for students who are about to graduate. It carries two units of credit, and therefore meets only once a week. This quarter we will organize it around student presentations. Each student will give 3--4 presentations in class. The other assigned work will be to read a book or article (that you haven't read before), and write a short report on it, and to do a few problems based on other lectures.

COORDINATES: Lectures meet Tuesdays 6:00--7:50p.m. (#12052 01) in Sci Science 247.

TEXT: Fomin, Genkin, & Itenberg Mathematical Circles (Russian Experience) American Mathematical Society, Mathematical World, Vol. 7. This has some great problems.

WEB RESOURCE: http://seki.csuhayward.edu/4901.html will be my Math 4901 homepage. It will include a copy of the syllabus and list of homework assignments. I will keep this updated throughout the quarter.

GRADING: Your grade will be based on 3--4 oral presentations (in class), a report on a mathematics book or article you read, and homework assigned and graded by your peers.

The breakdown of points is:

Presentations Report HW
60% 20% 20%

HOMEWORK: Each presenter will handout a set of five exercises, which are doable after the lecture. These should be simple enough that they don't take a lot of time, but not so simple that they can be answered without any thought. These will be handed in the next week to the presenter, who will grade them.

REPORTS: Choose an article from the American Mathematical Monthly or a book to read and write a short 5 page report on it. If time permits, there may be presentations on these at the end of the quarter.

Your report should be interesting to read in its own right.

PRESENTATIONS: Each presentation should last 10 minutes (strictly enforced with a timer!). There will be a couple of minutes for questions at the end of each presentation. Please handin a typed summary of your presentation to me, and handout a homework assignment as described above (make enough copies) to the class. You may choose your topic from among those given below, or get approval from me for a different one.

TOPICS: Here are suggested topics for each of the first three presentations.

FIRST PRESENTATIONS:

SECOND PRESENTATIONS: Discuss the five "most important/interesting" facts about:

*For Triangles and Circles, the two presentors should confer to insure that their material doesn't overlap. THIRD PRESENTATIONS: Provide a good introduction/review for the following:

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