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71 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book for challanging you to think with clarity, June 23, 2004
Artin's book is probably one of the better books, more because of the way you have to read it to learn it. Artin's book is extremely nonstandard, in the sense that it isn't so "encyclopedic" as you usually encounter with the whole theorem, corollary, proof, proof, proof, example, example sequence. What I think a lot of readers miss is that Artin's book makes you fill in the details he leaves out by using the hints he mentions in words within the text. For example, I was able to expand the two pages of notes on Ch 2, section 5, in Artin into about 8 pages of original notes and theorems, just by digging for the main points. If you want a sample of my notes, please email me and I'll email you a brief PDF sample for you to compare. That being said, assume that you will have to dig a lot in this book, and should you choose to study from it, I suggest the following:
How to read it:
With a cup of coffee, or tea, and a notepad of paper for you to make comments on. Do not take notes; anyone knows that simply rewriting things doesn't do anything for learning. You should do the proofs in different ways, if you can see how, and try to make some of the aside remarks he makes into theorems or more precise ideas (this is not to say that Artin lacks rigor; this is just talking about the general commentary. When he makes commentary, it always seems to be enough to actually dig out exactly what to do after a little scratching). He also leaves a lot of easier proofs to the reader, so do them.
Is non-standard a less-rigorous approach?
No. Artin is definitely doing his own thing here, but I think it works really well. Getting through that book FORCES you to take responsibility for your math education by making you get your hands dirty while also developing an intuitive understanding of algebra.
What about his personal flavor of algebra?
Well, it's fairly clear to all of us that texts seem to have different flavors (being a function of the author's research area, and what was fashionable during the time the book was authored). Artin's book is algebra with light strong hints of geometry throughout, as he is in algebraic geometry. You will find that unlike most authors, Artin loves structures made of matrices when working with examples, as opposed to permutation groups or the ``symmetries of the square group,'' known also as the ``octic group.'' While these things have their place in his book, he changes the emphasis here. That's why I suggest using a companion book so as to have two sharply contrasting flavors of presentation, and Herstein seems to write in such a way that would do this. Artin covers a lot of material extremely quickly, but focuses on the bigger picture in several key areas. For example, the sections 7 and 8 in chapter 2 deal almost exclusively with how one would go about investigating a particular group structure to learn about it, teaching a student how to dig into something they might barely understand.
Advice to make a wondeful course:
Use another book which IS encyclopedic as a reference, since Artin doesn't label theorems and definitions so explicitly. I suggest Lang's Algebra or Undergraduate Algebra.
Personal Charracterization:
This book helps you learn how to fight with algebra problems--in a course that can be taught in a very dry way, M. Artin has been able to supply a text with a large scope, borrowing ideas from topology, analysis, etc. The book has a very broad scope, and the exercises and problems Artin has chosen are great for teaching you to dig into ideas.
* EDIT * This book is based on lecture notes, and so is great to learn from, but not so great as a reference text. Things you might like to look up (i.e., correspondence theorem for subgroups containing a normal subgroup) are left as exercises, so it's tough to track down some things.
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quite Simply the BEST, September 26, 2004
By treating the concrete before the abstract, Artin has produced the clearest and easiest to understand expositon I have seen. He delves quite deeply into groups, rings, field theory and Galois theory. It is NOT true, as one reviewer claims, that Artin does not treat fields: an entire chapter is devoted to the topic.
If Bourbaki is your god and you believe axiomatization is the only way to present this material, then you won't like this book. But remember that this work is written by the son of the great Emil Artin, and Michael is a first-rate mathematician as well.
The ordering of topics and the approach are non-standard but this emphasis on the concrete before the abstract and the use of a function motivated development make this book stand apart from the competition. It is not only the best undergraduate abstract algebra text that I have seen but it can be very useful for graduate students. My undergraduate major was not in math, I HAD NO UNDERGRADUATE COURSE IN ABSTRACT ALGEBRA but I jumped into a really heavy-duty graduate level abstract algebra course with Hungerford as the text. Now, I feel that Dummit and Foote is much better than Hungerford and Artin is even better than the aforementioned and much better - and more thoughtful -than Gallian. I wish I had Artin to give me enlightenment and perspective when I was struggling with this material having had no prior exposure to it.
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37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exactly how an undergrad abstract algebra book should be, May 7, 2000
Pretty much any introductory abstract algebra book on the market does a perfectly competent job of introducing the basic definitions and proving the basic theorems that any math student has to know. Artin's book is no exception, and I find his writing style to be very appropriate for this purpose. What sets this book apart is its treatment of topics beyond the basics--things like matrix groups and group representations. I suppose many introductory books shy away from much of the material on matrix groups in Artin's book because it involves a little analysis (and likewise for the section on Riemann surfaces in the chapter on field theory). However, Artin correctly realizes that a reasonably mathematically mature student--even one who doesn't know much analysis--will be able to profit from and enjoy the relatively informal treatments he gives these slightly more advanced topics. Of course these topics can also be found in graduate-level texts, but I for one would much rather be introduced to them via an example-based approach such as that in Artin than through the diagram-chasing obscurantism in more advanced books. I happened upon this book a little late--in fact, only after I'd taken a semester of graduate-level algebra and already felt like analysis was the path I wanted to take--but I'm beginning to think I would have been more keen on going into algebra if I'd first learned it from a book like this one.
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