First day handout for Mathematical Communication and Technology (Math 689-604)

About the course

This course discusses the communication of mathematics, with emphasis on computer techniques. The course is intended primarily for entering graduate students in the Department of Mathematics at Texas A&M University.

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 the 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.

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).

There is no required textbook for this course.

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 and laplace); students from other departments 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 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM. Our assigned classroom is Blocker 156, but most of the time we will meet in a computer laboratory (Blocker 127). There will be 12 class meetings, starting on Wednesday 30 August. There will be no class meeting on the following days:

• Wednesday 8 November (I will be at a workshop at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley);
• Wednesday 22 November (this is the evening before Thanksgiving Day);
• Wednesday 6 December (this is a reading day: no University classes meet on this day).

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 = exceeded expectations; B = met expectations; C = did not meet expectations; F = failed to complete a substantial amount of the required work.

Contacting the instructor

The best way to contact me is via electronic mail (Harold P. Boas). My office telephone number is (409) 845-7269. My office is room 322 of Milner Hall. I have office hours from 3:00-4:00 PM on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; and also by appointment.

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