July 9

Monday July 9, 2007 5:00 am Edmonton

I do not have Internet access this morning.

A. Morning Musings

5:00 am

Today will likely be much like yesterday. I have a fairly good sense of the general ideas behind section 1.4 of "Algebra: Abstract and Concrete" but some of the detail involving matrices is still a bit fuzzy. I am going to have another look at this and also at one of the Appendices on linear algebra. I also want to see if I can find a quicker method for moving between MathType on Windows xp and Dreamweaver on the Mac.

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	3 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Pushkin: A Biography" by T. J. Binyon	1 hr

C. Actual Learning Activities

5:20 am

Mathematics 17

July 9

Mathematics Chronology

5:20 am Although I have a fairly good sense of section 1.4 Symmetries and Matrices, I do not have the skills necessary to do the mathematical manipulations. I am going to have a look at Appendix E which gives a review of elementary linear algebra.

I also want to have another look at the steps involved in gettting an expression from MathType in Windows xp to this page to see if I can't see a quicker way of doing this.

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

5:30 am Success on the difficulty of using MathType and this web page: I have MathType on OS X (I thought it was only available on Windows xp).

This is a test image with a transparent background. It is only a two-step process. Create the expression in MathType and save it to the Dreamweaver folder for this website. Much simpler than what I was doing yesterday.

"... 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

6:00 am I have had a glance at the appendix on elementary linear algebra and have noted that Goodman suggests two books as supplementary references:

Herstein, I. N. (1996). Abstract Algebra. 3rd ed. Prentice Hall.
Shifrin, T. (1995). Abstract Algebra. Prentice Hall.

I will see if I can locate one or both of these books in the university library. That is enough for this morning. Another case of one step forward and two back.

But I am positive about the situation. I feel that I am (slowly) getting back into the groove. I have time.

10:00 PM

I continue to make good progress on creating a tutorial web site for learning about XHTML and CSS. I put about 3 hours on this activity at various times during the day. I still have some fine tuning to do, but the basic procedure for creating an XHTML file, a CSS file, and then showing how the combination can determine the appearance of the file on the Web is now complete.