July 8

Sunday July 8, 2007 5:30 am Edmonton

I do not have Internet access this morning.

A. Morning Musings

5:30 am

Sunday mornings are for a review of the past week and a time to prepare a plan for the coming week.

My plan for last week went fairly well. Literature: I completed two books and have begun a third. Science: I completed "The Canon" and made a set of notes about the book. Technology: my understanding of XHTML and CSS continues to grow and my early efforts to create a tutorial on the topic are proceeding at a steady pace. Two activities are not doing as well: Mathematics and Birding. I do not seem able to activate these two activities.

Here is my plan for the coming week:

July 8 - 14	Description	Start	End
	Sorted by Start Date
Literature	Continue "Pushkin: A Biography" by T. J. Binyon	Jul 05
Mathematics	Continue reading "Algebra: Abstract and Concrete" by Frederick Goodman (complete section 1.4)	Jun 23
Technology	Read more on XHTML and CSS: play with special features	Jul 01
Technology	Complete module 2 for a tutorial web site on using Dreamweaver 8 to create XHTML and CSS files	Jul 02
Birds	Engage in two bird watching activities.	Jul 08

Now to make one for today.

B. Plan

Immediate	Description	Time
Mathematics	Begin section 1.4 of "Algebra: Abstract and Concrete"	1 hr
Technology	Continue creating a tutorial web site: module 2	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Pushkin: A Biography" by T. J. Binyon	1 hr

C. Actual Learning Activities

6:20 am

I now have a plan for the week as well as one for today. I originally thought I would play around with working on my tutorial web site for XHTML, but have decided to have a look at my Mathematics goal instead. I intend to read section 1.4 Symmetries and Matrices and then see about making a few notes.

Mathematics 16

July 8

Mathematics Chronology

7:00 am It has been a couple of months since I last looked at this. I am beginning this morning by reading section 1.4 Symmetries and Matrices.

I have modified my format for note-making since April, but will simply copy the previous entry and continue on. I am not only using XHTML 1.0 Transitional but I am also in a transitional phase with respect to this web site. The focus this morning is on mathematics rather than XHTML.

Algebra: Abstract and Concrete. Edition 2.5 (online) Frederick Goodman

Chapter 1. Algebraic Themes

There are 12 sections to this chapter. The main themes appear to be symmetry (first four sections), permutations, divisibility, integers, group, rings, and fields.

1.1 What is Symmetry?

See Mathematics 12 notebook.

1.2 Symmetries of the Rectangle and the Square

See Mathematics 13 notebook.

1.3 Multiplication Tables

See Mathematics 14 notebook and Mathematics 15 notebook.

1.4 Symmetries and Matrices

7:10 am I have read this section (4 pages) and have found it tough sledding. There is a large amount of new notation as well as some new terminology. The real difficulty is being sure that I understand what is being said as well as how it is being said. This is going to take some careful rereading and I will have to be very careful in my note making to not gloss over the material.

"... we are developing a mathematical model for a physical phenomenon - the symmetry of a physical object such as a ball or a brick or a card." [p. 11]
"... a symmetry of a figure R is a transformation or map from R onto R." [p. 11]
"A transformation is called an isometry if for all points

7:40 am I am feeling that trying to incorporate mathematical notation into this web site is not worth the effort. I am having to switch between Windows and OS X as well as use Grab & Preview and them paste the image into this web page. By then I have forgotten the mathematics that led to the expression.