math 427 lecture notes (Spring 2025)

 


lecture 1 (01/22/25) Review of well-ordering, induction. Divisibility of integers. Existence and uniqueness of gcd's. Notion of a prime. Factorization into primes. There are infinitely many primes.

lecture 2 (01/24/25) Equivalence relations and partitions.  Integers mod n form a ring.  Definition of a ring.

                  (01/27/25)  lecture cancelled

lecture 3 (01/29/25) Definition of a group and of a homomorphism.  Basic properties of homomorphisms.

lecture 4 (01/31/25) Isomorphisms, subgroups, criterion for being a subgroup, kernel and image of a homomorphism, subgroup generated by an element, a homomorphism is injective iff the kernel is trivial.

lecture 5 (02/03/25) Group actions. Orbits. Orbits of an action partition a set. Right cosets of a subgroup.

lecture 6 (02/05/25) Left cosets of a subgroup.  A homomorphism descends to an injective map from the set of cosets of the kernel.  Classification of subgroups of Z. Any finite group generated by one element is isomorphic to Zn . The orthogonal and special orthogonal groups.  Intersection of a family of subgroups is a subgroup.

lecture 7 (02/07/25) A subgroup generated by a subset.   The dihedral group Dn by generators and relations.

lecture 8 (02/10/25) Permutation groups. Cycles.  Disjoint cycles commute.  Any permutation is a product of disjoint cycles.

lecture 9 (02/12/25)  Uniqueness of decomposition of a  permutation  into a product of disjoint cycles.  Orbit/stablizer theorem.  Finite orbits for an action of Z are cyclic. All cosets (left and right) are the same size. Lagrange's theorem. Index of a subgroup.

lecture 10 (02/14/25)     Left and right cosets are in general different.  Normal subgroups.  For a normal subgroup left and right cosets are the same. Kernels are normal subgroups.   Cosets of a normal subgroup form a group.

lecture 11 (02/17/25)  Order of an element.  In finite groups g|G| = e for all g in G. First isomorphism theorem.  Third isomorphism theorem.

lecture 12 (02/19/25)  2nd isomorphism theorem.  Any permutation is a product of transpositions. The representation of the symmetric group by symmetric matrices.

lecture 13 (02/21/25)  Sign representation of the symmetric group Sn. Centralizers, conjugacy classes .

lecture 14 (02/24/25)   The class equation, classification  of groups of order p2 (p a prime), Cauchy's theorem: if a prime p divides the order of a group G then G has an element of order p.

lecture 15 (02/26/25)   Semi-direct products. Automorphisms of Zn .

lecture 16 (02/28/25)   Automorphisms of Zn and an application. Normalizers, conjugate subgroups. Statement of Syllow theorems.

lecture 17 (03/03/25)   Groups of order pq (p,q primes). Review for the first midterm.

first midterm exam (03/05/25)

lecture 18 (03/07/25)  Proofs of Sylow theorems.

lecture 19 (03/10/25) Rings.  Basic properties. Polynomial rings.

lecture 20 (03/12/25) Ring homomorphisms. Subrings. Universal property of polynomial rings. Evaluation maps and "change of scalars".  Ideals. Kernels of homomorhisms are ideals. 

lecture 21 (03/14/25) Quotient rings.  First isomorphism theorem for rings.  Intersection of a family of ideals is an ideal.  Principal ideals.

lecture 22 (03/24/25) Ideals generated by a subset and principal ideals. Not all ideals are principal. Zero divisors. Integral domains.  Finite integral domains are fields.  If D is an integral domain, then for any polynomials f,g in D[x], deg(fg) = deg(f) + deg(g).

lecture 23 (03/26/25) Division algorithm for F[x] and principal ideals.  Roots of polynomials.  F[x]/(p).

lecture 24 (03/26/25) Product of rings. Maximal ideals. M is maximal in a comm. ring R iff R/M is a field. Prime ideals.  P is a prime ideal in a comm ring R iff R/P is an integral domain.  Maximal ideals are prime.

lecture 25 (03/31/25) Irreducibles. Notion of PID. Euclidean domains. Gaussian integers. A Euclidean domain is a PID. Primes in commutative rings. In integral domains primes are irreducibles but not conversely.

lecture 26 (04/02/25) In a PID irreducibles are primes and give rise to maximal ideals. Associates.  Ascending chains of ideals. Union of an ascending chain is an ideal.  In a PID ascending chains terminates. 

review for the second midterm (04/04/25)  Problem 10 corrected.

second midterm exam (04/07/25)

lecture 27 (04/09/25)  PIDs are unique factorization domains (UFDs).  Products of ideals.  Definition of a module and some properties of modules. Submodules. F[x]-module structures on a vector space over F and linear maps.

lecture 28 (04/11/25)    F[x]-module structures on a vector space over F and linear maps.  Homomorphisms, kernels and images of homomorphisms. Quotient modules. First isomorphism theorem for modules. Generators. Cyclic modules.

lecture 29 (04/14/25)  Linear independence. Basis.  Direct sums of modules (external and internal). Statement of the structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a PID [invariant factors form].

lecture 30 (04/16/25) Chinese remainder theorem and its connection with the structure theorem(s) for modules over PIDs.  Annihilators and torsion in a module.

lecture 31 (04/18/25) Definition of torsion. Torsion submodules. Any finitely generated module is a quotient of a free module.  Surjective map to a free module splits.

lecture 32 (04/21/25) Rank of a finitely generated free module.  Existence of maximal ideals (no proof).  If M is a free module of rank m over a PID and N is a submodule then N is also free and rank N is at most m.

lecture 33 (04/23/25) Dual basis of Hom(M, R) for a finitely generated free R-module M.  If N is a submodule of a free finitely generated module M over a PID R, then M has a basis adapted to N.

lecture 34 (04/25/25) The rest of the proof of the existence of adapted basis and an example.

lecture 35 (04/28/25) Structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a PID in various forms.  Proof of the existence part.  Classification of finite abelian groups.

lecture 36 (04/30/25) Start of proof of the uniqueness part of the structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a PID.

lecture 37 (05/02/25) End of proof of uniqueness part.  Start of Jordan normal form discussion.

lecture 38 (05/05/25)  Proof of Jordan normal form theorem

review (05/07/25)


Last modified:  Saturday, May 3 15:20:36 CST 2025