The course is an introduction to some fundamental algebraic structures: groups, rings and fields.

Lectures and exercise sessions

Written and oral exam

The contents of the course of Linear Algebra.

The integers. Integer division. Greatest common divisor and the Euclidean algorithm. Unique factorization of integers. Congruences.
Groups: definition and examples; abelian groups. Subgroups. Homomorphisms and isomorphisms of groups; kernel of a homomorphism. Direct product of groups. Cyclic groups and generators of a group. Order of an element. Index of a subgroup and Lagrange's theorem. Normal subgroups; quotient group modulo a normal subgroup. Symmetric groups and Cayley's theorem. Homomorphism and isomorphism theorems for groups.
Rings (commutative and non-commutative), integral domains, division rings and fields. Homomorphisms of rings. Ideals and operations on ideals. Quotient ring modulo a two-sided ideal. Homomorphism and isomorphism theorems for rings. Chinese remainder theorem. Prime and maximal ideals. Polynomials with coefficients in a ring. Euclidean domains, principal ideal domains and unique factorization domains. Factorization of polynomials with coefficients in a unique factorization domain. Irreducibility criteria for polynomials. Algebraically closed fields; the "fundamental theorem of algebra".

Notes provided by the teachers.
I.N. Herstein: "Algebra", Editori Riuniti.
M. Artin: "Algebra", Bollati Boringhieri.