Metric and Topological Spaces
MTH 461-001
| Instructor: | Mark Iwen |
| Time and Place: | Lectures are MWF 11:30 am -- 12:20 pm, in Wells Hall A304 |
| E-mail: | markiwen@math.msu.edu |
| Office: | D220 WH |
| Office Hours: | Monday 12:30 pm -- 1:30 pm, Tuesday 12:30 pm -- 1:30 pm, and Wednesday 12:30 pm -- 1:30 pm |
We will discuss topics including, e.g., set theory, metric spaces, topological spaces, maps, product and quotient topologies, connected and compact spaces, separation axioms, pointwise and uniform convergence, and related computational applications.
Course website for MTH 461-001:
http://math.msu.edu/~markiwen/Teaching/MTH461/MTH461_F23.html
The course website is mandatory reading for the course. On it you will find the course schedule, the syllabus, and supplementary reading. Homework assignments will be posted on the schedule.
Textbook:
Topology (second edition), by James R. Munkres
Prentice Hall, Inc., 2000.
Supplementary Texts:
We will also utilize material from other pdf sources provided by the instructor on D2L.
Homework:
Homework assignments will be given most weeks and will constitute 60% of your final grade. The homework questions will be assigned on the web with their due dates. Posting of new assignments will be announced in class. You must submit your homework solutions during the class period on the due date unless prior permission has been granted to submit otherwise. Late homework assignments will never be graded. The lowest two homework scores will be dropped when computing your average homework grade. Homework solutions must be original copies in the student's own handwriting/compiled LaTeX. No other submissions will be graded. Solutions must be clear and neatly written to receive credit. A subset of the homework problems will be graded on each assignment.
Midterm Exam:
There will be a midterm exam in class on Friday, October 20, 2023. It will constitute 15% of your final grade.
Final Exam:
There will be a final exam on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 from 7:45 am -- 9:45 am in Wells Hall A304. It will constitute 25% of your final grade.
Asynchronous Lecture Dates:
There will be four asynchronous lectures during the semester on the dates (i) Wednesday 10/25, (ii) Friday 11/3, (iii) Wednesday 11/22, and (iv) Friday 12/1. Links to these video lectures will be posted to the course D2L page by each of the four dates listed above.
Grading:
Your final course percentage will be determined by averaging your homework, midterm exam, and final exam percentages with the following weights: Homework (60%), Midterm Exam (15%), and the Final Exam (25%). The result of this weighted average will then be rounded to the nearest integer.
Your final grade (e.g., 3.5, 4.0, etc.) will be assigned according to a class ranking. That is, the weighted averages calculated as above for all the students in the class will be rank ordered. Finally, threshold scores (e.g., a score above which a 4.0 is earned) will be determined, thereby establishing each student's final grade in the class. The threshold scores for each grade will never be higher than those indicated in following table.
| 90% -- 100% | A | 4.0 |
| 85% -- 89% | A-/B+ | 3.5 |
| 80% -- 84% | B | 3.0 |
| 75% -- 79% | B-/C+ | 2.5 |
| 70% -- 74% | C | 2.0 |
| 65% -- 69% | C-/D+ | 1.5 |
| 60% -- 64% | D | 1.0 |
| 0% -- 59% | F | 0.0 |
Incomplete grades will be given only in unusual cases of illness or other personal emergency, which causes the student to miss a significant amount of the course. This grade cannot be given for any other reason.
Academic Integrity:
You are encouraged to work with your peers on solving homework assignments. However, all submitted homework solutions must be written up individually in your own words. Submitting another student's written work as your own will be considered plagiarism.