Math 448 (Expectations)

Our textbook is Do Carmo's Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces, which is one of the classic works in this field. It is one that you will want to keep for future reference. The level of abstraction is higher than you might have had in other courses, but we will try to demystify some of that during the course. There are some notational issues you will want to be aware of, and I will bring them up as they occur. One that may confuse you initially is that the vector cross product is represented by a caret (^) rather than an "x".

I will assign some readings out of the book to supplement or augment the material from class, or to prepare you for the discussion we will have in the next class. You need to do these at the time that I assign them, not wait until later, as without that reading, you may not have the background to understand the next day's material. You probably are not very experienced reading mathematical texts, and this will be important practice for you in that regard. Reading mathematics is not the same are reading other types of prose; mathematical writing is dense (it carries a lot of precise meaning in a small amount of space), and so it takes longer to read than you might expect. Also, you may need to read through things several times, and often have to look back at previous material to get the details straight in your head. Be sure to leave enough time to fully understand the assignments; a quick read through usually will not suffice.

Math 448 (Winter 2007) web pages Created: 01 Jan 2007 Last modified: 02 Jan 2007 13:42:57 Comments to: dpvc@union.edu

Course Responsibilities Home Page Course Philosophy