Neil Hoffman

Office: RLM 11.104 Email: nhoffman@math.utexas.edu Phone: 475-9171
Office Hours: By appointment. Generally, I try to give 2 hours a week.

This is a Moore method course. So there isn't a whole lot of direction you are going to get from the website.
A couple of good principles to keep in mind are:
1) If I present this problem, how would this proof be critized?
2) Now that I have thought about the problem for a while is there a more direct proof?
If you are stuck something to keep in mind are:
1) Is this problem true?
2) What is an example where the theorem applies? What is an example where this doesn't apply?
3) Is there a simplifying assumption I can make?

A word about grading:
Remember that there is a significant participation portion of your grade. So, show up. Also, your notebook is going to be your textbook for the course. It should be neat, correct and most importantly a final draft. Having it upto date and accurate before each exam will greatly benefit you in the long and short run. By that I mean that you will be well perpared for the exam and have a great reference material for the future.

For those interested using LaTEX:

Here is the most recent version of the course notes in LaTEX.

Course Notes

And the pdf version.

Course Notes PDF


Here is a great reference page:

Getting Started with LaTex

I will also be more than willing to help you out with LaTex related problems during office hours.

As this is a Moore method course, if one of you guys asks a question I am going to post it here:
LaTeX FAQ

Also, you will need a TeX editor.

The standard one for Mac's is TexShop:

TexShop

For PC's the standard one is winEdt:

winEdt

I think winEdt might be a little tricky to install. If you have problems, feel free to email me and I can try to help you out.

If you want to use the computer labs here. Open up a shell and type: "emacs yourfilename.tex" and you can start writing a file. I recomend copying the entire conents of the file below and then removing everything between, "\begin{document}" and "\end{document}".

When you are ready to compile. Press control-x then control-s to save your file. Then control-x control-c to return to the command line and type latex yourfilename.tex. A dvi file will be created that will have your work in it.
Also, I can send you some LaTex files, if you want something to tinker with.

You can check this out:
Sample file