Math 4301 - Honours Seminar (2012-13)

This course is the capstone course for the Honour's program. Students work independently, under the supervision of an advisor, to write a project on mathematics and give a presentation on their topic.

---

News (Last Updated: Nov. 26, 2012)

• Nov 26, 2012 I did some tweaking to the due dates.
• Sept 9, 2012Some last minute details added.
• August 7, 2012 More details, e.g. course outline, have been added to the webpage. I have also sent an email to all the students in the course about potential projects. If you have not received this information, please contact me.
• July 6, 2012 Web page constructed. Check back for details.

LaTeX Resoures

As part of this course, you will learn how to use LaTeX, a typesetting program for mathematics. Here are some resources for you:

• LaTeX Introduction Handout (a brief introduction to LaTex)
• LaTeX Homepage
• LaTeX Wikipage
• LaTeX Reference Sheet
• Beamer Wikipage

Math Talks Resoures

Here's some information to help you with your math talks:

• The Do's and Don'ts of Giving a Math Talk
  The slides from my in-class presentation.
• How to talk mathematics by P.R. Halmos, a classic article by a well-known mathematician.
• A quick quide to Beamer
  A good place to hunt around for ideas and examples.

LaTeX Templates

Here are some LaTex templates that you can use for your own projects.

• Project Template |Latex file|pdf file|
• Beamer Talk Template |LaTeX file|pdf file|
  • When compiling a LaTeX file that uses the Beamer class, you need to compile it as a PDF document.

Online Math Resoures

You can find some examples of previous undegraduate projects on the department webpage:

• Lakehead Mathematics Honours Program

Since you will need to hunt out your own resources, here's how to find information.

• MathSciNet This is a mathematician's favourite tool! You need to be on campus to access this one. You can acess it at home, but you need to go through the library.

• Math arXiv PrePrint Server Preprints of papers, freely available. Since these papers haven't been refereed, treat with caution (many are fine, but there are incorrect papers on the arXiv).

• Google Scholar A good source of information, but lots of "noise". For math, MathSciNet is better.

• If you are looking for a research topic, you may want to check out the following journals:
  • College Mathematics Journal
  • American Mathematical Monthly

• Student Mathematical Library The American Mathematical Society has put together a nice series of books on topics accessible to advanced undergraduates. Lakehead's library has many of these books.

• Still stuck finding a topic? You can always browse the list of Mathematics Topics on wikipedia to get you going.

Course Information

Course Supervisor: Adam Van Tuyl

Office: RB 2015
Office Hours: T: 2:00-3:00PM and W: 9:30-10:30AM
Email: avantuyl AT lakeheadu.ca

Place and Time:

Class: Ryan Building 1045; MW - 2:30 - 4:00

Handouts

All class handouts are available as PDF files.

Course Information
Handout for first day

Guide to Writing Proofs
Handout on writing proofs

Grading Scheme

See the course handout for details

Important Dates

Sept. 10, 2012
First semester classes begin

Oct. 1, 2012
Proposal of Topic Due

Oct. 8, 2012
Thanksgiving (no class)

Oct. 31, 2012
Draft Outlines Due

Dec. 3, 2012
First semester classes end

Dec. 7, 2012
First Draft Due

Jan. 9-14, 2013
Mini-talk

Jan. 23, 2013
Peer Review of Draft Due

Feb. 15, 2013
Second Draft Due

Feb. 18-22, 2013
Reading Break

Feb. 25-Mar. 1, 2013
Practise Talk Session

March 6, 2013
Peer Review of Practise Talk

April 1, 2013
Easter Monday (no class)

April 2-4, 2013
Final Presentations

April 9, 2013
Second semester classes end
Final Projects Due

Links

Lakehead University

LU Math Department

Adam's Home Page

Student Code of Conduct