Classroom	Earth Science 142
Class hours	MoWeFr 11:30AM—12:25PM
Professor	Boris Goldfarb
Office	Earth Science 120B
Office hours	MoWeFr 12:35PM—1:30PM
Telephone	518-442-4712
Email address	goldfarb@math.albany.edu
WWW page	http://math.albany.edu/~goldfarb/

About the course: The seminar format of this course is a bit unusual: here students and occasionally the instructor will give 40 minute talks on topics that are not in regular courses or might not be always included in corresponding regular courses. Each talk will be followed by questions, answers, and possibly a more extended discussion of the mathematics of the talk or the manner of presentation. I will start off by giving a series of lectures like that, and then we'll start giving talks on a rotating schedule. I will bring a list of suggested topics to class but the students are free to choose their own topics, just make sure you get my approval before you start preparing the talk. Every Monday, instead of a seminar talk, I will meet with each of the two speakers scheduled for that week and discuss their talks during these "conferences". The Wednesday speaker will stop by my office at 11:30AM, and the Friday speaker at 12:00PM. The level and extent of help I provide is up to the student: it can be simply giving me the title of the talk and assurance the presentation is ready or it could be a full-fledged practice run for the talk. I can also help organizing the presentation and with the mathematical details. All I ask is that the student starts preparing over the weekend so that our conference is useful. Schedule of talks: August 31, September 2, 4, 9: BG, a series of talks on a topic TBA September 11: Andrew Ziegelstein (az528527) September 14: conference September 16: no class September 18: John Rogers (jr723976) September 21: conferences September 23: Kyle Rome (kr788139) September 25: James Rice (jr864994) September 30: Scott Sidoli (ss721974) October 2: Sean Edington (se568195) October 5: conferences October 7: Chris Hocker (ch279595) October 9: Patrick Haufe (ph379188) October 12: conferences October 14: John October 16: Sean October 19: conferences October 21: Khadidiatou Diop (kd142715) October 23: James October 26: conferences October 28: Chris October 30: Andrew November 2: conferences November 4: Scott November 6: conferences November 9: Khadidiatou November 11: Patrick November 13: Kyle The following are all pairs of 20-minute talks: November 16: conferences November 18: Kyle and Andrew November 20: John and Chris November 23: conferences November 30: conferences December 2: Sean and BG December 4: Scott and Patrick December 7: James and Khadi The following information is added to satisfy the Minimum Contents of a Class Syllabus requirements. There is no prerequisite for this course. The grade is based exclusively on class participation. The course is A-E graded. There are no required textbooks, materials, purchases, fees. Attendance is absolutely critical to success of and in the class.