MSc Projects (MATH61000)

Marcus Tressl

http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/Marcus.Tressl/

Course homepage (including these slides):

...teaching/MScProjects/index.php

MSc Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Logic

The University of Manchester, Department of Mathematics
 1. Content of this module - overview

1 This module is running throughout the taught component, i.e., from

the end of September to the end of May.
2 It is compulsory and worth 30 credits. (All other taught modules in
the MSc are worth 15 credits, the dissertation is worth 60 credits.)
3 The unit “credit” indicates the total number of hours students are
expected to work, including lectures and revision:
1 credit = 10 hours.
4 All material that I provide for this module (including these slides)
are posted on the module’s homepage. There is nothing on
“Blackboard”/My Manchester.
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 1. Content of this module - brief outline

Part A: Mathematical writing, presentation and mini-project

This part is worth 10 credits and runs until Friday of week 8 (November
17). You are expected to work 12 hours per week in Part A. Contents of
this part:
Six lectures on research skills (writing and presenting mathematics,
LaTeX, resources) in weeks 1 and 2.
Students write a mini-project over a period of 6 weeks. Submission
deadline: Friday, November 10, 3pm.
Presentation of the mini-project by the students in week 8.

A more detailed timetable may be found at the module’s homepage.

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 1. Content of this module - brief outline
Part B: The main project
This part is worth 20 credits and runs from November 20 to May 13.
The main project is supervised by some member of staff.
You need to find a project before the end of week 6, i.e. before
November 3. This is done as follows:
Please choose at least two supervisors with topics from
ProjectsMATH61000.pdf and send your choices to the lecturer via
email. Please indicate your preference (or say that you have no
preference); we try to accommodate everybody’s choice. You may
contact prospective supervisors to get further information about the
advertised project.
The mini-project and the main project do not need to be connected,
you can use the mini-project also to close some gaps that you see
from your UG studies. However, if you want to get some inspiration
for the mini-project from the available main projects, have a look at
ProjectsMATH61000.pdf. An example of a main project may be
found in MainProjectExample.pdf.
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2. Homework to be done September 26 – October 3

1 Install LaTeX (more on this below) and typeset an example.

√ For
example, write one page where you state and prove that 2 is not a
rational number, or take a mathematical text book and try to
reproduce one page from that book.
2 Choose a mini-project. More on this below.
3 You will have an individual meeting (30 minutes), commencing
Thursday Sep. 28, where we discuss the choice for the mini-project.
To do so visit our Doodle poll and select your slot as soon as
possible (ideally before Friday this week).
4 Important: Please suggest at least one topic title to me via email,
before the individual meeting.
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2. Homework to be done September 26 – October 3

4 Important: Please suggest at least one topic title to me via email,

before the individual meeting.
Your topic selection should be made on the basis of the following
information.
List of possible topics, or alternatively suggest your own topic.
An example of how the mini-project could look like:
MiniProjectExample.pdf. (Feel free to use the LATEX-file
MiniProjectExample.tex used to produce this example as well as the
file MiniProjectExample.bib holding the bibliographic resources.)
Read the section on how to get resources of the document at hand.
Have a first glimpse at the available main projects
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 3. Resources for mathematics
Trusted resources
1 The University of Manchester Library: https:
//www.library.manchester.ac.uk/search-resources/?
(Needs your University credentials.) I also recommend going there
and browsing through text books relevant to your topic.
2 MathScinet: https://mathscinet-ams-org.manchester.idm.
oclc.org/mathscinet/search.html (Needs your University
credentials.)
This is a world wide leading web-service about mathematical texts
(books and research articles) that have been peer-reviewed. It is a
principal and reliable resource:
It has reviews of the items which is sometimes telling in an
understandable way what is in a particular text.
You can search the full text of these reviews (and title / authors).
The items are linked, i.e. you can search who has quoted a particular
book or article, which can be very helpful to find the correct resource.
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 3. Resources for mathematics - trusted sources
3 Zentralblatt: https://zbmath.org/ This is a competitor of
MathScinet, not as complete, but has some jewels and sometimes
other or better reviews, which could be informative.
4 Ask supervisor: Via email, or by showing up during their office hours
(check the supervisor’s homepage or ask the reception in ATB), or
by making an appointment (via email).
5 Read references of nearby topics. For example if you choose to write
about a specific topic in Analysis, grab a big standard work on
Analysis and look through the references. Or find a research article
about the specific topic and check their references for general books
about your topic.
6 Find a good book that uses your topic, but is not mainly about your
topic. For example: There are plenty of books about category
theory, but these are for most purposes too massive to get a quick
introduction to the fundamental part of the theory. Now, the book
“Algebra” by Serge Lang uses category theory to some extent and
has a short and concise appendix on category theory focussing on
the essentials.
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3. Resources for mathematics - Preprints and unpublished
notes

ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/ (preprint server covering most

sciences)
HAL: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ (another preprint
server).
Websites of mathematicians having unpublished notes, or Lecture
notes of undergraduate courses.
These sources are in principle trustworthy, but have not been refereed or
reviewed. So care has to be taken. For notes of lectures, make sure the
source is genuine. For example, suppose you find this source. It is not
available on any website, but still the bots find it. Would you trust it?
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 3. Resources for mathematics - Unverified sources
The following can be used, but mainly as an entrance point, for example
in order to find references to trusted sources or keywords and phrases
that might help you to find such a source. You should avoid making
statements in written mathematics that are only backed by unverified
sources.
Wikipedia has a large range of mathematical topics, definitions and
explanations. You can start reading about some topic there if you
cannot find a book right away. However, care has to be taken,
frequently the material on Wikipedia is outright wrong. Still, you
might get an impression on what a certain notion is about or to
which part of mathematics it belongs to. Further, even if the text is
wrong, the page might give you references for further search, or
keywords that you can use for further search.
MathOverflow and Stackexchange are forums where people are
asking and answering mathematical questions (there are many
others of course but these two are to some extent moderated, i.e.
they do not contain arbitrary nonsense). Users frequently post links
to trusted references, so this is of use.
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 3. Resources for mathematics - Unverified sources

The internet. If you have a question and no clue how to start

searching for an answer, you could write your question in some
search engine and see what you get. The goal then is to finally find
some trusted source.
There are two reason for finding resources:
Find statements, proofs and explanations that you will reproduce
and elaborate on.
Give references, in order to acknowledge the original author of the
result, or to quote a result that you need in your project but for
which you do not give a proof. In the latter case the resource must
be in the trusted category above.
Important: References need to be available to the reader and stable
(contents of websites are normally unstable, here is an exception).
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 4. Topics for the mini-project I

Below is a list of suggestions for mini-project topics. You can work on

exactly the topic as named, or you can use the information under the
Wikipedia link as an entrance point to find a related topic.
If you want to work on a topic that is not listed, you are welcome to do
so. In any case we will discuss your choice in the individual meeting in
week 1. The purpose of this meeting is to make sure your topic is doable
in 6 weeks.
 4. Topics for the mini-project II
The topics are of varying difficulty and volume with respect to
prerequisites. Note that the focus in the mini-project is more on the
presentation side rather than on the mathematical side.
Be careful: A seemingly easier topic might be harder to write on, because
you need to write about a broader context and make a wise selection of
material. A harder topic is mathematically more challenging but easier to
organise.
For example, consider the two topics “Introduction to Modules” and
“Modules over Principal Ideal Domains”.
Obviously the second one will need knowledge of the first one. Now in
the second topic one can treat the introductory material very briefly in a
preliminary section or even just treat it with references. Then the project
would essentially elaborate on the main theorem about modules over
principal ideal domains. On the other hand “Introduction to Modules”
requires a clever choice of selection (a full introduction would contain
hundreds of pages) and organisation of material.
 4. Topics for the mini-project III
Topics

A Algebra
1 Noetherian rings and Hilbert’s basis theorem. Wikipedia
2 Cayley-Hamilton for rings and applications (e.g. Nakayama’s
lemma). Wikipedia,
3 Algebraic and integral elements. Wikipedia
4 Introduction to modules. Wikipedia
5 Modules over principal ideal domains. Wikipedia
6 The p-adic numbers. Wikipedia
7 Absolute values on Q. Wikipedia
8 The algebraic closure of a field. Wikipedia
9 Introduction to categories and functors. Wikipedia
B Metric spaces and topology
1 Introduction to topology. Wikipedia
2 Alexander’s subbase lemma.Wikipedia
3 Tychonoff’s theorem. Wikipedia
4 The contraction mapping principle and applications. Wikipedia
5 Banach Fixed Point Theorem, the general statement. Wikipedia
6 Urysohn’s lemma. Wikipedia
 4. Topics for the mini-project IV
7 Partition of unity. Wikipedia
C Analysis
1 Constructions of the field of real numbers. Wikipedia
2 The implicit function theorem. Wikipedia
3 Power series, formal and convergent. Wikipedia
4 The Stone-Weierstraß Theorem. Wikipedia
5 The fundamental theorem of ordinary differential equations:
Picard-Lindelöf. Wikipedia
6 Introduction to Banach spaces. Wikipedia
7 Transcendence of the Euler number. Wikipedia
8 Introduction to measures. Wikipedia
D Geometry
1 Helly’s theorem on convex sets with applications. Wikipedia
2 Carathéodory’s theorem on the computation of the convex hull and
its generalizations. Wikipedia
3 Introduction to manifolds. Wikipedia
E Combinatorics
1 Ramsey’s theorem and its applications to combinatorics and number
theory. Wikipedia
 4. Topics for the mini-project V
2 The Schröder-Bernstein Theorem and cardinal numbers. Wikipedia
F Mathematical Logic
1 Soundness and completeness theorem of first-order predicate logic.
Wikipedia
2 Ultraproducts and Loś’s theorem. Wikipedia
3 The Lemma of Zorn and its applications. Wikipedia
[BEGIN LONG VERSION]
My predicate logic lectures
Naive Set Theory (Chapter 1 of my level 3 logic course)
Find:
Commutative algebra
Metric spaces / topology
My notes (possibly):
C ∗-algebras. Self-contained exposition of the Gel’fand-Naimark-Segal
construction.
O-minimal structures. With application to Neural Networking Learning.
NIP. Self-contained introduction to dependent theories.
Gröbner bases. First steps.
Model Theory of differential fields
 4. Topics for the mini-project VI
[END LONG VERSION]

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 5. Assessment

1 The marking rubric for the MSc dissertation may be found here.
There is no oral presentation attached to the dissertation.
2 In the main project, 90% of the marks will be allocated using
essentially the same marking rubric as in item 1 above, and 10% of
the marks will be allocated to an oral presentation about the main
project at the end of semester 2.
3 In the mini-project, 80% of the marks will be allocated using
essentially the same marking rubric as in item 1 above, and 20% of
the marks will be allocated to an oral presentation about the
mini-project in week 8 of semester 1.
However, there is one major difference in the marking of the
mini-project compared to the main project: The level of the content
is essentially ignored in the mini-project. Hence a harder topic will
not get more marks because of its level of difficulty.
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 6. Where to start writing LATEX?
I recommend working with the following components.
1 The LATEX program itself.
I recommend MikTeX. This works equally well under Windows,
Linux/Ubuntu and Mac. Installation is very easy, instructions can be
found on the program’s website. [BEGIN LONG
VERSION]Alternatively: TeXLive. [END LONG VERSION]
2 An editor to typeset your project.
I recommend TeXStudio (for all platforms). Installation is very easy,
instructions can be found on the program’s website. [BEGIN LONG
VERSION]Other editors:
WinEdt if you are using Windows. This editor is by far the most
elaborate one for LATEX. It is not free, but the University has a
license.
TeXnicCenter (for Windows).
Kile (for Linux/Ubuntu).
TexShop (for Mac).
TeXworks (all platforms, included in TeXLive and in MikTeX).
TexMaker.
Comparison of TeX editors.
A pdf viewer that supports forward search and inverse search. Here
 6. Where to start writing LATEX?

There are many resources on the web to learn LATEX, here are a few:
LATEX homepage,
LATEX Wiki book
Paul Johnson’s LATEX site
TeX FAQ
CTAN: Contains (almost) all available packages.
Find (almost) any symbol in the Comprehensive LATEX Symbol List
A rich source of examples of diagrams and pictures, including code,
may be found at http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/
Most LATEX editors will also assist you finding LATEX-documentation and
will suggest various standard templates for writing the most common
pieces of mathematics (like lists, theorem and proof environments,
displayed formulas, matrices, diagrams).
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 7. How to find a suitable topic?

Using the material mentioned in the homework section you should first
narrow down your selection to a number of topics that are appealing to
you, say you have narrowed it down to 5 possible topics. Find trusted
sources (download those that are accessible and then go to the library).
Once you have the resources in place you should take into account the
following:
The mini-project is supposed to be between 10 and 13 pages
(including cover sheet, references and index). Hence the
mathematical text (including the introduction) should be between 7
and 10 pages. Can you write about your selected topic in 7-10
pages?
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 7. How to find a suitable topic?

How much of the topic is new to you? From the 60 hours allocated
for the mini-project, you shouldn’t spend too much time in learning
new material. If you have never written a project and you have no
experience with writing LATEX, I recommend choosing a topic that
you know more or less already, or you can fill the missing details in
10 hours. If you have already written some mathematical text using
LATEX you might want to allocate at least 20 hours for the actual
writing, a safer option would be 30 hours.
You will have to present the material in week 8 to the lecturer. Can
you see yourself talking about the topic? (In week 2 there will be a
lecture on presenting mathematics.)
Can you find a good variation of trusted resources from which you
can choose? It is not a good idea to just have a single source as you
need to produce your own account of the topic.
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 7. How to find a suitable topic?

You will need to say something in the mini-project. Which idea will
you communicate?
Are there interesting applications of the main topic that you can
elaborate on?
You need to include examples. Do the sources have helpful
examples?
Can you say something about the wider context of your topic?
How systematic do you want to be? Do you want to develop some
theory in the first place, or explain a specific theorem? Both tasks
have their own challenges.
Whom will you be writing for? Is the text to be understandable for a
year 1 UG mathematics student? A year 3 UG mathematics
student? You will need to write about what a reader is supposed to
know to read your project.
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 7. How to find a suitable topic?

Every project should have an introduction and a list of references. It

could also contain other sections. For example (we will talk about these
next week in more detail):
1 Introduction
2 Preliminaries and/or background
3 The body of the text
4 Applications
5 Further Reading
6 Conclusion
7 References
8 Index
There are various books about how to write mathematics. There is no
one way, but there are some guiding principles. More on this next week.
For now, maybe read the preface of [Viv14].
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 7. How to find a suitable topic?

A summary of how to write mathematics that I very much agree with is

given by Paul Halmos in [Hal70, p. 124, last paragraph of section 1]:
“The basic problem in writing mathematics is the same as in
writing biology, writing a novel, or writing directions for assem-
bling a harpsichord: the problem is to communicate an idea. To
do so, and to do it clearly, you must have something to say, and
you must have someone to say it to, you must organize what you
want to say, and you must arrange it in the order you want it said
in, you must write it, rewrite it, and re-rewrite it several times,
and you must be willing to think hard about and work hard on
mechanical details such as diction, notation, and punctuation.
That’s all there is to do.”
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 8. Global strategies for writing

1 Communicate an idea, hence you must have something to say.

Ideally it should be one main idea, not a conglomeration of loosely
connected facts. If you are not writing with a single main statement
in mind, identify a coherent theme.
2 You must have somebody to say it to. Who is your audience? This
is very important because it will give you a separation of the
material that you will elaborate on and the material that will be in
the prerequisite section (or will just be quoted). It will also help you
make a decision on what to justify and what to deem as “known”.
3 When the first two points have an (approximate) answer: make a
rough plan how to organise the material. Do you want to write
about exciting applications of your main theorem or theme? How
much additional theory, formalism or explanations will these
applications need to address the target audience?
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 8. Global strategies for writing

4 In order to actually start writing: write something!

It does not need to be the first section and it should not be the
introduction (the introduction is written at the very end). For
example you could try to write up one of the main theorems that
you want to communicate, including a (sketch of a) proof. While
doing so, you will see material that has to be included, objects that
have to be defined and other explanations that need to be present.
This gives some information about the organisation of material.
5 Write sections in spirals: 1,2,1,2,3,1,2,3,4,. . . and re-organise if
necessary. Look at earlier sections in the light of new material that
has been added. Ask yourself if the original organisation needs
amendment. (Normally the answer is: yes).
6 A common problem in writing mathematics is that at the beginning
you do not foresee all the technical material that you have to
include, which forces a rearrangement of the original plan.
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 8. Global strategies for writing
Recall the following possible structure of a project, which might help in
making a plan: The project should have an introduction and a list of
references. It could also contain other sections. For example:
1. Introduction
2. Preliminaries and/or background
The body of the text, having sections. In this example, say it has
sections 3, 4, 5 and 6.
..
.
7. Applications
8. Further Reading
9. Conclusion
References
Index
There are various books about how to write mathematics. There is no
one way, but there are plenty of guidelines available, for example see
[Gil87; Hal70; Knu89; Kra97; Ros06; Viv14].
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 9. Writing principles

1 Everything you say needs to be justified, by either a proof, a

reference, or some form of indication why a statement is true. For
example, words like “clear”, “obvious”, etc. contain your judgement
that the statement is left to the reader and you assume that they
can fill the gap without a problem.
There are certainly limits to this. For example in calculations you
do not need to justify standard algebraic operations (binomial
formula), assuming your audience has basic mathematical education.
2 Think of correct notations early on and try to follow standard
conventions. Consult multiple sources if necessary.
3 Write a summary at the beginning of each section.
4 Create subsections if this helps to organize the material.
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 9. Writing principles - numbering and notions
5 Numerate statements for easy referencing and number them
sensibly. For example, if you have an item numbered by “3.2”, there
should not be another item with the same number: Hence, if you
have no subsections in section 3 say, all facts in section 3 should
have two digits. However, if you have subsections in section 3, all
facts in section 3 and its subsections should have three digits (see
the mini-project example for implementation using the command
\numberwithin).
6 When you introduce a new notion, make sure the reader can find
this easily later on. Traditionally you will create a “Definition”, but
sometimes new notions are introduced within facts or in a free
floating text. When you use the notion later on, help the reader
finding the definition easily. The easiest way is to boldface new
notions, wherever they are defined. An index is obviously also very
helpful and very easy to do, see the mini-project example for
implementation.
7 Many mistakes in projects come from ill-defined objects. Make sure
that all objects that you are introducing are well-defined.
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 9. Writing principles
8 Repeat notions and facts that have not been used for a while by
linking to earlier places.
9 Avoid using unspecified references, like “As we have seen above”. If
this on page 10, where does “above” point to? Instead write a
precise reference or describe the place that you are referring to. For
example: “By the remark after lemma XXX”, or “at the beginning
of the proof of Proposition XXX”.
10 Use of general conventions. If you are working under some specific
assumption, e.g. “all rings are commutative”, repeat all these
conventions at the beginning of each sections. If you have plenty
conventions, you can say “the conventions of the previous section
remain in force”. Conventions that are used throughout the text
should be stated at the end of the introduction.
11 Think carefully about which facts you want to label as Theorem,
Proposition, Lemma, Remark, Observation etc.
12 Frequently, technical material is gathered in lemmas. Say before
these lemmas where they will be used.
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 10. Good mathematical style

Write in complete sentences, and in proper English. Each sentence

should have a subject, an object and a verb.
For example,
Let C be a perfect subset of X . And nowhere dense.
is not correct. Instead you should write
Let C be a perfect subset of X . Suppose in addition that C is
nowhere dense.
When you proof read, you could improve this to
Let C be a perfect and nowhere dense subset of X .
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 10. Good mathematical style

Simple declarative sentences are the best for communicating

definitions and facts. For example,
Let f be a continuous function on [0, 1], and so it is bounded.
is harder to read than
Let f be a continuous function on [0, 1]. Then f is bounded.
Use formulations like “obvious”, “clear”, “can easily be seen” etc.,
with caution. Is the fact still clear three weeks after writing?
Notice: Declaring something as obvious, or clear, contains two
information: You believe the reader can fill the gap, and the fact is
supposed to be justified without you giving further details.
A minimal request when declaring something as obvious: if your
supervisor asks you for details, you can fill the gap.
Display important or complex formulas. See 2.2.6(ii) and (iii) of the
mini project for examples (find the code in the LATEX-file).
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 10. Good mathematical style
Do not use verbal contractions like “isn’t”, “don’t”, “let’s”. Instead
write “is not”, “do not”, “let us”.
You should normally write the project in the first person plural (“We
show...”, “We prove...”, “We have seen that...”, etc). This is meant
to include the reader in the reasoning and is the standard in
mathematical writing.
Avoid using temporal expressions (We will show). This normally
introduces unnecessary wording.
Use good punctuation. Sometimes a comma, or a lack thereof, can
even change the truth value of a sentence. Further, displayed
material, including diagrams should be terminated with a period if
the displayed material ends a sentence.
Do not start sentences with mathematical symbols and do not let
symbols clash at punctation. For example
“This shows that x ∈ G . x ∈ H, because. . . ”
is unreadable. Instead write
“This shows that x ∈ G . Furthermore x ∈ H, because. . . ”
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10. Good mathematical style - resist symbols

Do not use logical symbols as abbreviation and do not mix logical

symbols and words. Do not use mathematical notation
inappropriately (particularly when it is clearer to write something in
plain English). For example “If ∃x ∈ Z with the property. . . ” is
wrong. Instead write “If there is an integer x with the property. . . ”
Another example: Do not write
f is a continuous function on [0, 1] ⇒ ∃x0 ∈ [0, 1] s.t. f (x0 ) =
supx∈X f (x).
Instead write
Let f be a continuous function on [0, 1]. Then there exists a
point x0 ∈ [0, 1] such that f (x0 ) = supx∈X f (x).
Resist symbols that are not used in statements, like “Every
differentiable function f is continuous.” What does f contribute
here?
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 10. Good mathematical style

If you quote somebody literally, display the quote or use quotation

marks; furthermore give a reference to the literature and do not
modify the original text in your quote. For an example see the quote
of Halmos.
Use a spell checker, but be careful: they only detect blunt mistakes.
For example, no spell checker will detect the two mistakes in the
sentence
The equation x 2 = a has a solution in C for very complex num-
bers a.
Also check for repeated words, like “the the” (occurs frequently as a
copy and paste error); Spell checkers are implemented in most
editors and can help you with the verification.
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[BEGIN LONG VERSION]
 10. Good mathematical style - find the bad style

A Binary Operation ◦ on a set A 6= Ø is a function ◦ : A×A → A such that

◦ is defined for every element of A×A; A function A × A → A is already defined for all
elements of A×A. What else do you want to say here?
◦ uniquely associates each element of A×A to some element of A, so ∀x, y ∈ A : x ◦y ∈ A. A
function A × A → A already does this association. What else do you want to say here? We
say that A is closed under ◦.
When referring to binary operations, instead of ◦(x, y ) we will write x ◦y .
A binary operation ◦ : A×A → A on a nonempty set A is, ∀x, y , z ∈ A:
Commutative if x ◦y = y ◦x;
Associative if x ◦(y ◦z) = (x ◦y )◦z. check grammar
A Group is a tuple (G , ∗G ) where: G 6= Ø is a set and ∗G : G ×G → G is a binary operation on G .
Furthermore, these satisfy the following group axioms: ∀x ∈ G ,
∗G is associative Where is x here?
G contains a unique identity element for ∗G , which we sometimes denote by 1G or just by 1,
if the group is obvious from context.
That is: x ∗G 1 = 1∗G x = x; Does 1 depend on x? This is what is indicated by the leading
quantifier.
G contains a unique inverse for each of its elements, and we denote the inverse of x ∈ G by
x −1 . That is: ∃x −1 ∈ G : x ∗G x −1 = x −1 ∗G x = 1G . The expression ∃x −1 ∈ G does not make
sense. Where is uniqueness expressed?
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[END LONG VERSION]
 11. The role of examples

Your project should have examples and counterexamples, but you should
think carefully about the purpose of your (counter-)examples:
1 An example might illustrate a definition. The purpose can be to
inform the reader about major instances where this definition applies
to. Or, it might connect the definition with the reader’s intuition
and knowledge to help them cope with the frequently abstract level
of mathematical objects or concepts.
2 An example might show how a specific fact is useful in a concrete
context that is known to the reader. For example, the intermediate
value theorem could be followed by an example showing how the
theorem establishes solvability of the equation cos(x) = x in R.
3 A counterexample might show that perceived improvements of facts
do not hold. (E.g.: After the theorem saying that differentiable
functions are continuous, there could be an example showing that
the derivative is not necessarily continuous).
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 11. The role of examples

1 A (counter-)example could explain why certain assumptions in facts

are necessary. For example, the boundedness theorem (saying that
every continuous function, defined on a closed and bounded interval,
attains a global maximum) could be followed by two examples
showing that both assumptions “closed” and “bounded” are
necessary for the conclusion of the theorem. (Do not write: “The
theorem fails without these assumptions”, because a theorem cannot
fail. Only the conclusion of the theorem might fail.)
2 Do not write trivial examples without a good reason. If you define
what is a topology or a Boolean algebra and then your only example
is “{∅, R}”, why would you state this? One reason could be: It is
the smallest topology on R and this might be of interest for
systematic reasons. However it does not elude the definition of
topology and a more serious example should be presented.
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 11. The role of examples

1 Avoid writing overly complicated examples or endless example

calculations, unless this serves some purpose - in that case: name
the purpose.
2 If appropriate you can also include a picture or a diagram. Use
“TikZ” to implement this (it is a package that is already loaded in
the mini-project example). See
http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/ for plenty of ready
made examples including LATEX-code, which you can copy into your
LATEX-file and then tilt according to your needs.
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 12. Some principles for writing proofs
1 Make clear in the proof where the assumptions are used, even if this
is very obvious. This also avoids mistakes.
2 Give a structure to proofs by making claims or even subclaims,
where possible. When a proof of a claim is finished, make sure the
reader realizes this.
3 If you have to process various cases, use “case 1”, “case 2” etc. on
separate lines.
4 Longer proofs may have subclaims that are worth a lemma.
5 Very long proofs could be split up in lemmata where possible. You
could also write an outline or communicate the key idea of a long
proof. Another way to help the reader understand a complicated
proof is to run it in a specific case, as long as the central idea is still
visible in that case.
6 If you do a proof by contradiction: tell this to the reader in some
form.
7 If you do a proof by induction, say what you are inducting on.
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13. Referencing and citations - general rules

Collect the bibliographic sources at the end of the project. Each

item in your list of references should be cited somewhere in the main
body of the text. The bibliographic information of every specific
item should be complete and unambiguous.
References in the text should be as precise as possible. If you cite a
specific definition or fact, give a full reference. For example the
reference [Cie97, Theorem 4.3.4, p. 53] to a book in the proof of
2.2.11 of the mini-project example is correct. Think of the reader:
Will the reader immediately find what you are pointing to with the
information in the reference, or can you be more specific?
You can give references for several facts that you are writing about
at the beginning of the corresponding section. For example by
saying “The material in this section comes from Reference 1 and
Reference 2”.
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13. Referencing and citations - implementation

Avoid using references to websites without any other supporting

evidence. If you have to quote a website, include full page title, full
URL and a date when you have visited the website. For example
“Prime numbers, www.wikipedia.org” is not appropriate. Instead
write “Prime number, www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primes,
retrieved on 15/9/2018”.
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 13. Referencing and citations - implementation

Use BibTeX or BibLaTeX for the reference mechanism.

The best mechanism is to use biblatex as is done in the tex file of
the mini-project example. Here is a link to the documentation
The bibliographic information is stored in a separate “bib-file”. For
the mini-project example this can be found in the bib-file for the
mini-project example.
Find bib-files on https://mathscinet-ams-org.manchester.
idm.oclc.org/mathscinet/search.html as follows: Search for
an item; if the website gives you a list of entries, open the one that
you are looking for; then click on ’Select alternative format’ and
choose ’BibTex’. Then you can copy and paste the displayed
information into your bib-file.
There are also bib-files on arXiv if you are working with preprints.
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13. Referencing and citations - implementation

In order to quote an item that is listed in the bib-file, use the \cite -
command together with a shortcut to the entry of the bib-file. For a
concrete example look at the purple reference [Sto36] at the
beginning of the introduction of the pdf file of the mini-project
example. This is produced with the command \cite{Stone1936} in
the tex-file of the mini-project example. The label “Stone1936”
refers to the name of the corresponding entry in the bib-file of the
mini-project example. The actual output, namely [Sto36], is created
by the bibtex program.
You can also add entries to the bib-file yourself by using the
appropriate format, which may be found here.
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 14. The introduction
This is written at the end, when you know exactly what is in your text.
You should ask yourself the following questions: Which purpose is served
by the introduction? When you read books or papers, what do you want
from the introduction? What do you get?
Name a general context - which area does the project lie in.
Main idea, or theme, or result of the project, described in a
non-technical way.
Who is addressed by the project, what is its intended audience, what
is the reader assumed to know.
Brief overview of the project, e.g. section by section.
It is a good idea to include a table of contents before the
introduction, to display a quick outline (which is done automatically
with the command \tableofcontents just before the introduction).
If you are describing several results, try to put weights on them,
whenever possible. Say what is the main theorem and what is
secondary.
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 14. The introduction

If you want to include something about the history of the subject or

about mathematicians, you must include a trusted reference where
this can be verified.
If you do not have much to say about prerequisites, or applications,
or further reading, you can say these things in the introduction.
Hint: Read introductions of papers. In trusted resources you
normally find well written introductions. Try to extract some
principles that are used in these introductions. On arXiv you might
find some less favorable examples.
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 15. Preliminaries and/or background

If you have many prerequisites or explicit facts that you want to

communicate without interrupting the main text, you could write a
section on background and preliminaries. This could include:
Notational conventions with reference to standard literature.
What general level or basic terminology and facts are you assuming
and where can the reader find these in the literature.
Which facts are you using and where can the reader find these in the
literature.
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 16. The Presentation

The main problem of a presenter of mathematics is what?

TIME
Here are some hints and strategies for presentations of mathematics
using a board (black or white). A presentation using slides
is harder to follow for the audience,
is less entertaining for the audience,
connects less with the audience than a talk on the board, where the
audience sees the presenter working, and
takes much longer to prepare.
So I will focus on presentations using a board.
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 16. The Presentation - Preparation
You should prepare your talk by writing notes, which you can bring to
your talk. For preparation of these notes:
Focus on the absolute essential thing you want to say about your
project. If this is too complicated (e.g. because you would have to
introduce too much notation), prepare a weakening of the main
statement, which still has the main idea visible. One could even
focus on an essential example (but this is generally hard to do,
because examples many times hide the essence of an idea).
Try to develop a central idea. Avoid putting the main idea at the
very end, in fact name the concrete goal of your talk as soon as the
terminology has been clarified.
If you run out of time, the talk will either not reach the idea or you
have to rush through material. It is better to plan for certain
material that can be omitted. You could put weights on the
material. Label those things that are absolutely necessary for the
talk and those that are omittable (but still all this material should
originally fit into the allocated time).
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 16. The Presentation - Preparation

Define objects properly and conscientiously. Plan sufficient time for

definitions and explanations thereof. If the audience has no means of
understanding the central objects of your talk, you have lost them.
Proofs: Sketch central ingredients and key ideas of proofs. If you
need to do calculations: Focus on the genuine part of the
calculation. Normally, you will have very little time for proofs.
Sometimes the value of your main theorem is not clear from the
statement alone. Try to convince the audience of its value or its
usefulness or its beauty.
You can use examples or talk about the insight that the main result
gives. This could also be of a conceptual nature.
Include time for interruptions. These could be: questions from the
audience; you are making mistakes/typos.
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 16. The Presentation - The Talk
Speak to the audience, not to yourself or the material that you are
presenting. Look at the audience.
Organise the board. When you need to erase the board: do you
want to keep some essential information on the board?
Use the opportunities of the board. For example you can show
material in parallel (like a definition and an example thereof at the
same time).
Practice your talk with a timer. Also train the mechanics of writing
with chalk or a pen and how to clean the board quickly.
Not everything from your notes needs to be written on the board.
Some people write the notes in two colors (what to write on the
board, what to say only).
Think very carefully about what to write on the board. Long
sentences take time. You may use abbreviations, but make sure
everybody understands these correctly.
Look at the room a couple of days before the talk, so you know how
much space you have on the board.
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 16. The Presentation - Using Slides

The main problem with presentations of mathematics using slides is

even more the timing. Many presentations contain way too much
material that is impossible to be digestible for the audience in the
allocated time.
A second common issue with slide presentations is the dissonance of
what is on the slides and what the speaker is saying. The audience
tends to read what is shown to them. If the presenter is talking
about something else, this is often overheard.
A characteristically bad talk makes both these mistakes. The
audience sees slides, tries to read them, but is not given enough time
to do so - while the presenter is talking about something that is
actually not on the slides.
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 16. The Presentation - Using Slides
In order to get the amount of presented material right, prepare a
standard blackboard talk. Then you roughly know how much
material the audience can digest.
After that you can include the material that you would have written
on the board into the slides.
It is hard to say how many slides can go into one 20 minutes talk
because this depends how densely the slides are packed, or if you
also show diagrams or photos, for example.
A good estimate can be calculated as follows. Add up the time
needed for each slide to be shown:
1 For written text only, read out the text loud, this is the minimum
time of how long the slide should be shown to the audience.
2 For mathematical formulas: Write out the slide, this is the minimum
time of how long the slide should be shown to the audience.
If you follow this strategy, please be strict. There is obviously a trap
here: One is tempted to put more on the slides to “just show the
audience this or that”. Then the bad part of the presentation starts.
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 16. The Presentation - Using Slides

Implementation using LATEX and the beamer package.

Homepage of the beamer package:

https://www.ctan.org/pkg/beamer
This package should be included already in most LATEX installations.

From the website you can also get a very detailed documentation and the
code of a running example. Copy this example to an empty file, this file
then should compile right away.
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 16. The Presentation - assessment criteria

The talk will be assessed by me using the following criteria:

Is the mathematics correct?
Is a context given and is a central goal communicated?
Are all objects that are necessary for understanding the contents,
properly defined/explained? This of course depends on the intended
audience (so a word about that at the beginning should be said).
Is the presentation balanced and is the material presented efficiently
(inefficient/unbalanced might for example be: spending much time
on something obvious and then quickly going through something
difficult)
Is the speaker talking to the audience?
Is the handwriting legible (if you do slides: is there enough time for
the audience to actually read the slides and to listen to the speaker)
How does the speaker respond to questions?
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 References I
[Gil87] Leonard Gillman. Writing mathematics well : a manual for
authors. Mathematical Association of America, 1987. isbn:
0883854430. url:
https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/
discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma9920657704401631&
context=L&vid=44MAN_INST:MU_NUI&search_scope=
MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&lang=en (cit. on p. 28).
[Hal70] P. R. Halmos. “How to write mathematics”. In: Enseign. Math.
(2) 16 (1970), pp. 123–152. issn: 0013-8584 (cit. on pp. 25,
28).
[Knu89] Donald Ervin Knuth. Mathematical writing. MAA notes ;
no.14. Mathematical Association of America, 1989. isbn:
088385063X. url: https://www.librarysearch.
manchester.ac.uk/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=
alma9960634401631&context=L&vid=44MAN_INST:MU_NUI&
search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&lang=en
(cit. on p. 28).
 References II

[Kra97] Steven George Krantz. A primer of mathematical writing:

being a disquisition on having your ideas recorded, typeset,
published, read and appreciated. American Mathematical
Society, 1997. isbn: 0821806351. url:
https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/
discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma9912429124401631&
context=L&vid=44MAN_INST:MU_NUI&search_scope=
MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&lang=en (cit. on p. 28).
[Ros06] Richard J. Rossi. Theorems, corollaries, lemmas, and methods
of proof. Pure and Applied Mathematics (New York).
Wiley-Interscience [John Wiley & Sons], Hoboken, NJ, 2006,
pp. xiv+318. isbn: 978-0-470-04295-3; 0-470-04295-8. doi:
url: https://doi-
org.manchester.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/9781118031575
(cit. on p. 28).
 References III

[Viv14] Franco Vivaldi. Mathematical writing. Springer Undergraduate

Mathematics Series. Springer, London, 2014, pp. xviii+204.
isbn: 978-1-4471-6526-2; 978-1-4471-6527-9. doi: url:
https://doi-
org.manchester.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-
6527-9 (cit. on pp. 24, 28).
[BEGIN LONG VERSION]
 Mini-Project
Stone Representation of Boolean Algebras (and Boolean Space)
by Marcus Tressl

3 October, 2023

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Definition: A Boolean Algebra is an algebraic structure
B = (B, ≤, ∧, ∨, ¬, 0, 1),
where ≤ is a partial order on the set B with the following properties.
1 0 ≤ x ≤ 1.
2 x ∧ y = infimum of x and y for ≤.
3 x ∨ y = supremum of x and y for ≤.
4 x ∧ (¬x) = 0 and x ∨ (¬x) = 1.
5 x ∧ (y ∨ z) = (x ∧ y ) ∨ (x ∧ z).

Example 1: Boolean Algebras of subsets of a set S. Let ∅ =6 B ⊆ P(S)

be closed under finite intersections and complements. Then
A x ≤ y is defined as x ⊆ y .
B 0 is defined as ∅ and 1 is defined as S.
C x ∧ y is defined as x ∩ y . (Notice that x, y ⊆ S.)
D x ∨ y is defined as x ∪ y .
E ¬x is defined as the complement of x in S.
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Definition: A Boolean Algebra is an algebraic structure
B = (B, ≤, ∧, ∨, ¬, 0, 1),
where ≤ is a partial order on the set B with the following properties.
1 0 ≤ x ≤ 1.
2 x ∧ y = infimum of x and y for ≤.
3 x ∨ y = supremum of x and y for ≤.
4 x ∧ (¬x) = 0 and x ∨ (¬x) = 1.
5 x ∧ (y ∨ z) = (x ∧ y ) ∨ (x ∧ z).

Example 2: In this example, B is the set of logical terms t in variables

p1 , p2 , p3 , . . . like t = (p1 ∧ ¬p2 ) ∨ ¬(p3 ∨ p1 ), modulo the equivalence
relation of having the same truth table.
Here x ≤ y is defined as “x → y is a tautology”. The operations ∧ and
∨ are defined as the logical connectives as expected:
For example, if x is the equivalence class of t as above, and y is an
equivalence class of some other term s, then x ∨ y is defined as the
equivalence class of the term t ∨ s.
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 Stone Representation Theorem (Marshall Stone, 1936)
Every Boolean Algebra B is isomorphic to a
Boolean Algebra of subsets of some set S.
In fact, one can construct a natural topological space S such that B is
isomorphic to the Boolean Algebra
Clop(S) = {U ⊆ S | U open and closed} of subsets of S.
Notice: The construction of S above is already interesting when B itself
is a Boolean Algebra of subsets of some set X , because the space S gives
a new way (geometric/topological) on how to think about the algebraic
structure of B.)
For the proof, here is the definition of the space S: We take S to be the
set of all Boolean Algebra homomorphisms ϕ : B → {0, 1} and define the
topology as being generated by the sets
O(b) = {ϕ ∈ S | ϕ(b) = 1}, where b ∈ B.
The isomorphism B →Clop(S) claimed to exist in the theorem sends
b ∈ B to O(b).
Any questions?
[END LONG VERSION]