Math 4301 - Honours Seminar (2013-14)

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.

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News (Last Updated: Sept 2, 2013)

• Sept 2, 2013 Some small additions added to the webpage.
• Aug 12, 2013 Potential projects were sent via email today. I have also added the course outline.
• July 23, 2013 Nothing to see yet! Just getting the webpage in place. Come back later for more 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)
• How to download and install LaTex
• LaTeX Homepage
• LaTeX Wikipage
• LaTeX Reference Sheet
• ShareLatTeX Videos A number of excellent tutorials.
• Sample files for you to play with (the best way to learn):
  • A paper written with LaTeX (a math paper)
  • The LaTeX source code (the code for the above paper)
• Beamer Wikipage

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.

Math Writing Resoures

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

• Guide to Writing Proofs
  A handout on writing proofs I wrote for algebra.
• A guide to writng proofs
  A nice short guide to writing mathematics by Kevin P. Lee.
• Mathematical Writing
  A very detailed (but interesting) discussion on mathematical writing, by Knuth, et al.

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
  A classic article by P.R. Halmos, a well-known mathematician.
• A quick quide to Beamer
  A good place to hunt around for ideas and examples.

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.

• Springer Link is a publisher of advanced math books. Many of the books you can download free through Lakehead's library, or buy a print-on-demand copy for cheap ($25).

• 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: TWTh 2:30-3:30
Email: avantuyl AT lakeheadu.ca

Place and Time:

Class: CB 4058
Time: TTh 11:30-1:00

Handouts

All class handouts are available as PDF files.

Course Information
Handout for first day

Grading Scheme

See the course handout for details

Important Dates

Sept. 9, 2013
First semester classes begin

Oct. 3, 2013
Proposal of Topic Due

Oct. 14, 2013
Thanksgiving (no class)

Oct. 31, 2013
Draft Outlines Due

Nov. 28, 2013
First Draft Due

Dec. 2, 2013
First semester classes end

Jan. 6, 2014
Second semester classes end

Jan. 9, 2014
Mini-talk

Jan. 23, 2014
Peer Review of Draft Due

Feb. 13, 2014
Second Draft Due

Feb. 17-21, 2014
Reading Break

Feb. 25-27, 2014
Practise Talk Session

March 6, 2014
Peer Review of Practise Talk

March 25-27, 2014
Final Presentations

April 4, 2014
Final Project due

April 4, 2014
Second semester classes end

Links

Lakehead University

LU Math Department

Adam's Home Page

Student Code of Conduct