David Conlon

Ma 11. Mathematical Writing. 3 units (0-0-3); third term, 2026-27. Prerequisites: First-year students must have instructor’s permission to enroll. Students will work with the instructor and a mentor to write and revise a self-contained paper dealing with a topic in mathematics. In the first week, an introduction to some matters of style and format will be given in a classroom setting. Some help with typesetting in TeX may be available. Students are encouraged to take advantage of the Hixon Writing Center’s facilities. The mentor and the topic are to be selected in consultation with the instructor. It is expected that in most cases the paper will be in the style of a textbook or journal article, at the level of the student’s peers (mathematics students at Caltech). Fulfills the Institute scientific writing requirement. Not offered on a pass/fail basis.
Instructor: Conlon

Ma 5/105 abc. Introduction to Abstract Algebra. 9 units (3-0-6); first, second, third terms, 2026-27. Introduction to groups, rings, fields, and modules. The first term is devoted to groups and includes treatments of semidirect products and Sylow's theorem. The second term discusses rings and modules and includes a proof that principal ideal domains have unique factorization and the classification of finitely generated modules over principal ideal domains. The third term covers field theory, Galois theory, and an introduction to character theory for finite groups.
Instructors: Mantovan, Zhao, Conlon