My course materials have now arrived for M381 and M336 and the course websites opened today and so off we go again. It is good to be in touch with people once more. It is hard doing all this preparation in advance without contact with anyone and but now that I have the actual books in front of me and the forums are open, it is much more motivating.
So how well did I do in my 6 months or so of preparation. Well, I got through NT1, 2, 3 and ML1 and 2 of M381 and IB1, 2, 3, 4 and GR1 of M336, so 10 books in all, just under a third of each course. So this will give me a head start and make the progress smoother, I hope! But I do realise that even with this advantage, I am going to have to speed up from the way I have been working so far, which has been at my usual leisurely pace.
What I have found surprising in what I have seen so far is how much more difficult the set problems are. It has been a bit of a shock to the system that there are problems that I just can't do without having a peek at the solutions. I could devote more hours to trying to solve the problems without help but I don't think this is good use of my time. So I have had a reality check about what I can and can't do and I think this is a good thing.
So now its back to the books. I am reading NT4 on Fermat's and Wilson's theorems. Strangely enough the last book I read of M336, GR1 was all about the theory of integers again, a repeat really of NT1 and 2, but actually, the way it was dealt with in GR1 was more difficult! The problems were a pain and, not like me, I couldn't be bothered to attempt the last four in the book - I felt too drained!
Another thing about these two courses is that it is all about proofs (both in the text and the set problems). So if you don't like proofs you are in for a hard time!
At some point I would like to write a summary of ML1 and 2. There was a lot of interesting stuff and writing a summary would help me to recall it all.
Good luck to you all and I look forward to meeting up with Chris and Dan again.
