Scribd
Upload
140 views

A Companion To Lang's Algebra

This document provides notes for a graduate algebra course taught from Lang's Algebra textbook. It includes motivations, explanations, and supplementary materials to accompany Lang's text. The notes are organized to follow the order and topics covered in Lang, with some deviations. They are intended to help students learn the material and provide additional context. The notes cover group theory, category theory, rings, modules, and Galois theory from Lang's text.

Uploaded by

Reinhardt
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
140 views

A Companion To Lang's Algebra

This document provides notes for a graduate algebra course taught from Lang's Algebra textbook. It includes motivations, explanations, and supplementary materials to accompany Lang's text. The notes are organized to follow the order and topics covered in Lang, with some deviations. They are intended to help students learn the material and provide additional context. The notes cover group theory, category theory, rings, modules, and Galois theory from Lang's text.

Uploaded by

Reinhardt
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

A Companion to Lang’s Algebra

(Last revised August 25, 2006; based on 3rd Ed., 4th printing of revised Springer version)
notes by George M. Bergman

In these notes, I attempt to bring together in an orderly arrangement materials I have given to my
classes over the years when teaching Berkeley’s basic graduate algebra course, Math 250, from Lang’s
Algebra – motivations, explanations, supplementary results and examples, advice on material to skip, etc..
I follow this expository material with some exercises not in the text that I particularly like, together with
notes on a few of the exercises in the text.
This version of the handout is based on many passes through the f rst Semester of the course, Math
250A, but only one occasion when I taught 250B from Lang, in Spring 1997. Thus, the coverage of the
250A material is more complete and probably better written than that of the 250B material. Sections of
Lang that I have not used in the course are in general not covered.
Order of topics. Math 250A generally treats group theory in some depth, gives some elementary
category theory and basic results on rings and modules, and then an extensive development of Galois
theory. (Linear algebra, though logically in the same class of fundamental algebraic subjects as the above,
is generally postponed till the second Semester, 250B, so that Galois theory can be covered adequately in
250A.) As shown in the list below, in using Lang I follow approximately his ordering of this material,
with a few deviations.
Logical Prerequisites (pp.ix-x ). Appendix 2.1. §§I.1-6. Appendices 2.2-2.4. §§I.7-12 except §I.10.
§§II.1-2. §§III.1-4 except the latter half of §III.2 (from 3d line of p.125). §§II.3-5. §§III.5-6.
§§IV.1-6 except §5. §§V.1-6. §§VI.1-9, but ending VI.2 at p.273 and VI.9 at p.299. §VIII.1.
In these notes, for the convenience of those not necessarily following the above order, I have put the
commentary on the various sections in the order in which these occur in Lang. However, in cases where
the order of the above list deviates from that in Lang, my comments on the sections occurring later in the
above list may refer to some sections that occur earlier in that list but later in Lang; e.g., I assume Zorn’s
Lemma (Lang’s Appendix 2.2) in discussing free abelian groups (Lang’s §I.7), and I assume basic results
on modules, and the concept of an algebra (§§III.1-4) when discussing the ring-theoretic ideas of §§II.3-5.
The material of 250B is less f xed than that of 250A. The additional sections that I covered the one
recent time I taught 250B using Lang, and for which there are therefore notes in this Companion, are
§§III.7-9, §X.4, §§XIII.1-7, §§XIV.1-3, §§XVI.1-8.
Pre-comments, post-comments, etc.. Some of my comments are written to be read before you read
the indicated passage in Lang, to help prepare you for what is done there; others discuss what he has done,
assuming you have already read the passage. I will mark these two kinds of comments [<] and [>]
respectively. Comments which are to be read right when you reach a certain point in the text will be
marked [=]. Finally, the mark [~] means that the order relative to the passage in Lang is not critical.
Long comments. Though most of the items in these notes are short comments on specif c points in the
text, there are also some longer passages. Some of these develop material which Lang leaves out but
which I wished to include in the course (e.g., on structures of groups of small orders), others concern
heuristics, or motivate and discuss an open problem. The beginnings and ends of such passages are marked
with the symbols and in the right-hand margin.
Numbering. Results in Lang are referred to here by their chapter number, followed by the section-
and-result number they have in that chapter of Lang. E.g., what Lang refers to as Theorem 5.1 of
Chapter VI is referred to here as Theorem VI.5.1. Results proved in these notes will be numbered
similarly, but with a ‘‘c’’ (for ‘‘Companion’’) before the f nal number; e.g., my notes to Lang’s §I.6
contain a series of results, numbered Lemma I.6.c1, Lemma I.6.c2, etc.. Labeled displays in this
Companion will likewise be numbered (c1), (c2), etc..
The collection of exercises near the end of this Companion is arranged according to the section of Lang
to which the exercises are related, and numbered accordingly. E.g., the f rst exercise relating to Lang’s
§III.2 is numbered III.2:1. In addition, I give notes regarding some of the exercises in Lang. I refer to the

You might also like