This is a standard course for beginning graduate students. It covers
Group Theory, basic Ring & Module theory, and bilinear forms.
Group Theory: Basic concepts, isomorphism theorems, 
normal subgroups, Sylow theorems, direct products and free products of groups.
Groups acting on sets: orbits, cosets, stabilizers. 
Alternating/Symmetric groups.
Basic Ring Theory: Fields, Principal Ideal Domains (PIDs),  
matrix rings, division algebras, field of fractions.
Modules over a PID: Fundamental Theorem for abelian groups,
application to linear algebra: rational and Jordan canonical form. 
Bilinear Forms:   Alternating and symmetric forms, determinants.
Spectral theorem for normal matrices, classification over R and C.
(Class supplement provided)
Modules:  Artinian and Noetherian modules. 
Krull-Schmidt Theorem for modules of finite length. 
Simple modules and Schur's Lemma, semisimple modules.
(from Basic Algebra II)
Finite-dimensional algebras:  Simple and semisimple 
algebras, Artin-Wedderburn Theorem, group rings, Maschke's Theorem.
(Class supplement provided)
Homework Assignments (Fall 2008)
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Last updated: September 1, 2008