New Book: A Guide to Groups, Rings, and Fields

A Guide to Group, Rings, and Fields by Fernando Q. Gouvêa This Guide offers a concise overview of the theory of groups, rings, and fields at the graduate level, emphasizing those aspects that are useful in other parts of mathematics. It focuses on the main ideas and how they hang together. It will be useful to both students and professionals. In addition to the standard material on groups, rings, modules, fields, and Galois theory, the book includes discussions of other important topics that are often omitted in the standard graduate course, including linear groups, group representations, the structure of Artinian rings, projective, injective and flat modules, Dedekind domains, and central simple algebras. All of the important theorems are discussed, without proofs but often with a discussion of the intuitive ideas behind those proofs. Those looking for a way to review and refresh their basic algebra will benefit from reading this Guide, and it will also serve as a ready reference for mathematicians who make use of algebra in their work. Available in the MAA Store and the MAA eBooks Store. Use coupon code 1563872069 to receive 10% off your entire purchase. This coupon is good only in the MAA eBooks Store. Offer Expires:  December 31, 2012

On Books: Buy More!

"In tough economic times, we all look for ways to spend less. Cutting back on book purchases is always high on the list of possibilities. Books, after all, are rarely essential. A famous science fiction writer used to say that authors are always competing for their audiences’ beer money, and there’s a lot of truth to that.

I’m here to argue, however, that you should buy more books. Despite the economic gloom, despite libraries, the Internet, the arXiv, and Google books, buy more." - Fernando Q. Gouvêa ‎writes the "On Books" column for MAA FOCUS.

Read the full article from the December 2011 / January 2012 issue of MAA FOCUS.