Topic outline

  • General

    Lectures: Milo Orlich <milo.orlich@aalto.fi>

    Head TA: Rahinatou Njah <rahinatou.njah@aalto.fi> H01

    TA: Teemu Tasanen <teemu.tasanen@aalto.fi> H02, H03


    Lectures and exercise sessions

    All lectures and exercise sessions will be on campus. There will be two lectures per week. There are three exercise groups. Each group has one exercise session per week:

    • H01 - Thu 16-18
    • H02 - Fri 12-14
    • H03 - Fri 14-16


    How to complete the course

    Weekly homework will be assigned, and there will be a mandatory exam at the end of the course. Your final score will be based on homework and exam, or exam alone, depending on which is better for you. You are of course encouraged to participate actively in the lectures and exercise sessions, but you can also study on your own and just go to the final exam. 

    More details on the assessment can be found here.

    The material can be found here.


    Outline of the course

    An algebraic structure consists of a set equipped with one or more operations that satisfy some conditions. The algebraic structures studied in this course are called "groups" and "rings".

    Warning: This is a math course. (The word "abstract" is in the name of the course...) We will go through numerous proofs, and many of the homework problems will consist of proofs.

    Tentative plan:

    • Week 1: Groups, introduction. (First part of Chapter 1 of the lecture notes)
    • Week 2: Subgroups, homomorphisms. (Second part of Chapter 1)
    • Week 3: Quotients of groups. (Chapter 2)
    • Week 4: Some important examples and results. (Chapter 3)
    • Weeks 5 - 6: Rings, fields. (Chapter 4).