Math 103A, Modern Algebra I, Fall 2026

Instructor: Andrew Suk
Course Website: Canvas.
Textbook: J. Fraleigh, N. Brand, A First Course in Abstract Algebra, 8th edition, Pearson, 2021.

Schedule

Week 0, 9/25. Section 0, Introduction and Review.

Week 1, 9/28-10/2. Sections 1-2, Binary operations and groups. Homework 1: Section 0 (page 7) #6, 12, 16, 30. Section 1 (page 17) #3, 10, 27. Section 2 (page 28) #2.

Week 2, 10/5-10/9. Sections 3-4, Abelian and nonabelian examples. Homework 2: Section 2 (page 28) #6, 18, 28, 31, 38. Section 3 (page 38) #26, 27. Section 4 (page 50) #11.
Quiz 1, 10/9, (Homeworks 1-2).

Week 3, 10/12-10/16. Sections 5-6, Subgroups and cyclic groups. Homework 3: Section 4 (page 50) #12, 26, 35. Section 5 #8, 22, 30, 56, 61.

Week 4, 10/19-10/23. Section 7, Generating sets and Cayley digraphs. Review.
Midterm 1, 10/23.

Week 5, 10/26-10/30. Sections 8-9, Groups of permutations and finitely generated abelian groups. Homework 4: Section 6 #4, 18, 24c, 58. Section 7 #2, 10, 21. Section 8 #5.

Week 6, 11/2-11/6. Sections 9-10, Finitely generated abelian groups, cosets and the theorem of Lagrange. Homework 5: Section 8 #3, 15, 37. Section 9 #3, 10, 15, 39. Section 10 #6.
Quiz 2, 11/6 (Homeworks 3-4).

Week 7, 11/9-11/13. Section 12, Factor groups. Homework 6: Section 10 #16, 36, 47. Section 12 #8, 12, 28, 33, 36. No class on 11/11.

Week 8, 11/16-11/20. Section 13, Factor-group computations and simple groups. Catch up and review.
Midterm 2, 11/20.

Week 9, 11/23-11/27. Section 13, Factor-group computations and simple groups. Homework 7: Section 13 #4, 7, 16, 41 (parts a,b,c), 42, 43. No class on 11/27.

Week 10, 11/30-12/4. Section 14, Group actions on a set. Catch up and review.
Quiz 3, 12/4 (Homeworks 5-7).