HM/MA 004, Assignment 3, due Friday, 27 September 2002

(Note on collaboration: If you do the homework in pairs or groups, please list the name(s) of your collaborator(s) on what you each turn in.)

(15 points) Write an approximately two-paragraph "project proposal" for your midterm essay due 18 October. This is described in the syllabus as a 7--10 page paper, but it can take the form of virtually any kind of project (of comparable research depth and effort level to a 7--10 page paper) that goes beyond our readings in exploring one or more of the developments we've discussed. (For instance, you might write a computer applet to illustrate and explain some classical proofs.) Explain what subject(s) you want to investigate and how this relates to what you personally find important in mathematics; describe how your proposed project will accomplish this investigation. (The project proposals can be discussed collaboratively, but the resulting individual projects should be separate---unless you can make a strong case for a collaborative project that will be more interesting and enlightening than multiple separate ones, and the collaborators are all willing to receive the same grade for it. Of course, individual projects can also be constructed as separate aspects of a larger topic that the individuals are thinking about collaboratively.)
(15 points) Same as #1 above: that is, I want to end up with two alternative project proposals from each person, so that if there are serious obstacles to one of them we don't need to waste time searching for another. Explain which of your two proposed projects is more interesting to you, and why.