Budapest Semesters in Mathematics

Academic Program - Fall 2009

We are happy to welcome you to the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics. On this following page you find a lot of useful information, including the schedule of the coming days. Please study this material carefully.

Important:

You are cordially invited to our

orientation session

held in our school building,

on September 7th  (Monday) 8:15 AM

street address: Bethlen Gábor tér 2, Room 102 (LOOK FOR THE SIGNS), and to the

welcome party

at 5:00 PM, Room 224 (might change) 

Please note that your participation on the orientation session is very important!

During the orientation session we'll cover briefly all basic information regarding your everyday and academic life during the next semester, while on the welcome party you will have a chance to meet your professors for the first time and discuss details of the forthcoming classes, or simply ask questions.
As the room may change in the last minute, please look for the signs inside the Bethlen tér building

Courses will start in the same building on September 7th (Monday) morning at 10 o'clock (that is, immediately following the orientation session) The schedule of classes will be distributed later, via the Internet during the first week of September, and printed version on or just before the orientation session.

Fall 2009 Opening Program

Academic Calendar

Course Offerings

We will have a high number of students this semester, so we will offer all the usual courses, with the popular ones, like introductory combinatorics, introductory number theory, topology and graph theory in two different, usually parallel versions, with slightly different syllabi, and  three further optional math courses as a reading course. The usual history course, Hungarian language courses (elementary, and intermediate), a course on Hungarian culture, and three other non-math courses, a philosophy course, a course on film analysis, and a History of Modern Science course will also be offered. At this moment, there might be two or even three intermediate Hungarian language courses in the offer. Please consult the syllabi to choose the right one for yourself, and we'll discuss the details on the orientation session. Also, in case of low interest in the elementary level, we might simply cancel the elementary Hungarian language and will dedicate one of the intermediate ones for those who missed the Babilon course.

We also mention here that there are available courses given by the Budapest branch of the McDaniel College (earlier known as Western Maryland College), which you may wish to attend (without credit). These courses are held in the same building where we have the BSM classes but we can not take care of the scheduling conflicts — you will be able to audit these courses only if you do not have a BSM course at the same time. Again, these courses do not come with a BSM credit, unless special arrangements are made. In case you wish to attend any of them (even without credits), please contact the student coordinator, Ms. Anna Fóti or Dezsõ Miklós, the Hungarian director of the program. If you need a credit for those courses, you need (and will get) the permission of the local McDaniel office, but you should also check with your home institution if they accept them.
Please note that you might not be able to take some of these courses due to the limit on the number of students (since McDaniel college naturally will admit first their own students).

The courses Holocaust and Memory, Hungarian Art and Culture, Old World and New World Political Philosophy, History of Modern Science, and Film Analysis are cross-listed with McDaniel College and therefore they have pre-decided meeting time for the semester, we will not be able to change them even if they conflict with some of the other courses you would like to take. Also, in these courses you will find fellow classmates outside of BSM. (However, these count as regular BSM courses, no need for special arrangements to sign up for them and will be shown on your BSM transcript as regular BSM course).

Most of the math courses are of introductory character with prerequisites not going beyond calculus or linear algebra, but some of them (ALG2, COM2, D&B, FUN, GRT, GEO, DIG, RFM, MAP, and RFG or CMA) are somewhat more challenging and may require some experience in the field. Recently we have introduced elementary mathematical problem solving, an introductory, but not at all easy version of conjecture and proof.  The course turned out to be exceptionally successful, apart of it's name, which most students did not like, referring to something "elementary". Again, the course is not elementary at all, only the mathematical armory you need to solve those problems are not advanced algebra or analysis. Therefore, the same course is offered again, with code MPS, and changing the name elementary to Mathematical Problem Solving. 

We have been offering a complimentary make up course in classical algebra during the first three weeks of the program for the last semesters. The reason is that we - the professors at BSM - have experienced earlier serious lack of knowledge in this basic topic, which is a prerequisite for almost all of our courses (and will be listed so in case of some of your other courses). Many of the professors of the more advanced (and sometimes introductory) courses spend lots of time in reviewing these topics, independently of each other, and therefore loosing precious time. Therefore, we have decided to offer this additional make up course, not for credit and not to be counted against your BSM course allowance (in fact, you need not even have to register for it, since it will be over by the registration deadline). Still we urge all of you to attend this classical algebra course for your own benefit (even if you believe you thoroughly know it): nobody later should claim at BSM about the material presented here that they are unfamiliar with it or they have never learnt it. We will do our best to schedule it such a way that it will not be with conflict of any other courses. Those successfully completing the course will have that mentioned in their transcript as a NC (non-credit) course. Please note, that though the course is essentially required for all of your BSM studies, it is especially important for those who wish to take Introductory Number Theory, Galois Theory, Introductory (or Advanced, of course) Abstract Algebra and Complex Functions. Nobody should claim in those courses the lack of knowledge of some topic covered by the Classical Algebra course. 

The courses will be scheduled later, partly based upon your preregistrations. If you wish to take any further math courses/topics, let us know that on the preregistration form and we will try to do our best to help you, though this semester the relatively low number of students does not allow room for many additions. Due to time constraints, we will be able to schedule only the core math courses initially. For the remaining optional course(s) you (that is, the interested students and the professor of the course) will negotiate the schedule for them either on the welcome party or during the first week of classes.

We plan a series of Colloquium Lectures on various branches of mathematics held by outstanding Hungarian mathematicians and some other related activities. Watch for announcements. These events are (almost) always scheduled Thursdays at or around 4.p.m.

Please note

Any of the courses AL1, ANT, CO1, CLX, EPS, NU1 SET, C&P, PRO, TOP will be cancelled after the trial period, if the number of registered students in the corresponding class fall below 6. Please, realize your responsibility: dropping a class of 6 at a later time would cause serious difficulties for the remaining five students. On the other hand, in case of huge classes some may be split after the final registration.

The other courses may continue to work with 2-5 students in the form of a READING CLASS, where instructors meet students for 1-2 hours per week, and the major part of the material must be studied on an individual basis. BIO, D&B and LOG will most probably start as reading and will be changed to regular course only if their audience will exceed 6 permanently.

As mentioned above, other optional elective courses – other than the standard ones above – can also be inserted in the program depending on students' demand and the availability of a suitable instructor. These additional courses may operate on ordinary or on reading basis as well (but most probably on reading basis).

As said above, the schedule of classes will be distributed later, via the Internet the first week of September and the printed version on or just before the orientation session. Still you should know that we would have most of the time 2 or 3 classes parallel to each other, and no matter how hard we try to avoid conflicts, most of you will face the situation of having two or more of your preferred courses scheduled parallel.

The semester starts with a trial period of three weeks, when you can sit in as many classes as you wish. Only after this must you register for the courses you really want to study. In effect from the Fall 2004 semester we introduce an extra tuition fee (payable at the Budapest office) for the 6th and further math courses you would take (that is your tuition paid in the US covers 5 math courses and any number of non-math courses). For any further math course(s) a non-refundable tuition of 350USD/course should be paid by the registration time (i.e., by the end of the third week). No registration for 6 or more math courses will be accepted without the presenting the receipt of the extra tuition.

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO REGISTER ONLY FOR THOSE COURSES WHICH YOU ATTENDED DURING THE WEEK OF THE REGISTRATION, THAT IS, THE THIRD WEEK OF THE SEMESTER

I'd also like to draw your attention to the fact that in case anybody would like to drop a course later (that is, after the final registration), it can only be done by submitting a written request (form will be provided) signed by the instructor of the course to the Budapest BSM office. Failure of doing it OR DROPPING A COURSE WHICH YOU HAVE NOT ATTENDED DURING THE TWO WEEKS PRIOR THE SUBMISSION OF THE REQUESTOR will result a "NA" (non-attending) grade for the course.

List of courses and instructors, syllabi 

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