MA014G Algebra och Diskret Matematik A

A Note about Course Organisation

Welcome to Algebra and Discrete Mathematics A!
All comments about the course, positive as well as negative, are welcome. You can email me at the address below, and you are also welcome to come to my office to discuss any problems with the course or to get help with exercises.

Algebra and Discrete Mathematics A is a university level A mathematics course. If this is your first course at this level, it is worth noting that studying mathematics at university level A can be very different from what you experienced in your 'gymnasium'-days. The following is a small note on how this course is going to be organised and also contains some hints about study skills, which might help you cope better with the course.

Firstly it is important to realise that studying, learning the subject and passing the exam is your responsibility. Your lecturer and workshop tutors will not be checking whether you have done any homework, and it is therefore up to you to organise yourself such that you will be able to study efficiently.

In order to help you learn, there will be approximately three weekly lectures of duration about 2 hours each. These will cover most of the material you have to know for the exam. In addition to this there will be six workshops during the course, where you will have time to discuss any problems which may have arisen while you were reading the course book or solving exercises. It is important to emphasise that the workshops are not meant to be the place where you solve the exercises, these should be done at home or in groups outside scheduled classes. There are many places around campus where you can sit and work in groups. It is not compulsory to attend lectures or workshops, but you are strongly advised to do so. Workshops in particular are extremely important, in fact they are more important than lectures, as it is by actively doing mathematics that you learn the most.

Further to offering you lectures and workshops there will be assignments in the form of 'inlämningsuppgifter' which should be handed in at a specified time, and which will subsequently be marked and given back to you. It is not compulsory to hand in assignments, but you are strongly advised to do so, as it will give you bonus points towards the exam (tenta) and also for the first resit exam (omtenta). Getting your work marked will also give you an indication of how good you are at solving and presenting solutions of exercises, which is a key skill in written exams.

The course is divided into 6 blocks and covers a large part of Richard Johnsonbaugh: Discrete Mathematics 5th Edition, ISBN 0-13-089008-1 (Prentice Hall 2001). I shall refer to this book as [J]. All references will also be given to Editions 4 and 6 of [J], so you can use any of the three editions. To each of the 6 blocks of the course there is a study guide which will help you understand the most difficult passages in the book. Sometimes the study guides also contain additional material. The link to the study guides will be published on the course webpage which you can find at

You will always know in advance which sections are going to be the subject of the lecture as I will publish keywords and references for lectures on the course webpage weekly.

In the lectures we shall mostly cover theory from the course book and the study guides, but we shall also give examples to aid your understanding. Sometimes we may even solve some important exercises from the workshops. I use both the whiteboards and overhead projectors. You may want to take notes to study at home. However, all my transparencies will be available to you in PDF-format via the course webpage, so you can spend your time aiming to understand the lecture rather than on writing notes, if you prefer. I aim to make all lecture notes available at least a day before the lecture. Watch the news on the webpage for publishing dates.

Assignments