Free books and classes!

Hello mathematicians, puzzlers, and other curious people!

You may have already perused Springer\’s free ebook offerings (see the link to them in the distance learning section of the referral page if you haven\’t) — if not, make sure you do, because some of them are not to be missed and the free download opportunity won\’t be around forever.

In particular, I\’m checking out A Pythagorean Introduction to Number Theory. It overlaps with classes I\’ve taken and books I\’ve studied before, but not entirely, and there\’ll be some brushing up to do even on the overlap, so it looks like an interesting study topic. Based on really loosely skimming through, the prerequisites look about like the usual for a number theory class — basically, you have to know how to work with formulas and equations, and should already have a pretty good idea of how proofs work — so I\’m suspecting that lots of other mathematicians, puzzlers, and other curious people would also enjoy this.

So, here\’s the plan: I\’m setting up a study-along course for Pythagorean Introduction to Number Theory, Part 1, which will cover the first seven chapters (what the book refers to as \”foundational material\”), to start on Monday the 18th (that is, after finals week at The Day Job and a week off to recover/handle things).

If all goes smoothly this should take about two months, allowing about a week per chapter. After that, we will take a week or two off to balance our schedules and let folks catch up who started late or had Life Stuff happen, before going on to cover the \”advanced material\” in the last seven chapters — theoretically they should take about the same amount of time, but the second \”half\” may be more complicated and take longer, so we will play that part by ear.

Depending on your math (or other subject) learning needs, there\’s another offer you might find interesting: college level ACE-recommended (that is, your college might take them as transfer credit) classes at Sophia are available for free enrollment until July 31. You can join a class on your own, but if you\’d like to be part of the Math With Avrila groups, use these codes:

• College Algebra: 2e3ce0
  • for students in College Algebra and/or Foundations of College Algebra
• Statistics: 789e16
  • for students in Introduction to Statistics and/or Foundations of Statistics

I\’m still learning and figuring out the best ways to use Sophia resources, so please be understanding as I optimize the groups. If you\’re in one, please let me know how it\’s going from your perspective, because if trying them out during the free offer goes well I\’ll investigate how to keep on offering them.

That\’s all the updates I have for you right now, but there are other resources I\’m monitoring closely and working on, so expect to see some more updates soon. If there\’s anything you\’d especially like me to look out for or work on, please let me know.

Calc You Later!