October Lectures

Week of October 5-9

Oct 6: Review: rings and fields. Comments about Assignment 1.
Oct 8: Review: ideals; polynomials. Brief comments about binary symmetric and Gaussian channels.

Week of October 12-16

Oct 13: Extension fields. Comments about Assignment 1.
Oct 15: Splitting fields. Characterization of finite fields: basic theorems; existence and uniqueness of finite fields.

Week of October 19-23

Oct 20: Characterization of finite fields (cont): subfield criterion; the multiplicative group of a finite field is cyclic. Comments about assignment 1.
Oct 22: Gauss' algorithm: correctness and examples. Comments about midterm test. [A1 handed in.]

Week of October 26-30

Oct 27: Midterm test. [A2 handed out.]
Oct 29: The number of primitive elements. The number of irreducible polynomials.

To September lectures.
To November lectures.