18.S190, Introduction to Metric Spaces, IAP 2023

Instructor: Paige Dote
Class hours:TR 9–10:30 in 2-131
Office hours: Undetermined
Syllabus:Course Syllabus
Dedication: I would like to thank Professor Larry Guth for being the advisor for this IAP class, and Professor Minicozzi for helping me navigate the logistics of creating a class like this.
Grading:Based on weekly problem sets. You may use TeX or you may write your solutions by hand; in the latter case please make sure they are easy to read! You may consult anyone and anything but you need to absorb and write out the solutions yourself. Anything close to copying is not permitted.
Description: This course will provide a basic introduction to metric spaces. The goal of the class is to teach the material that 18.100B covers that 18.100A doesn't, such as metrics, compact sets, and theorems that follow from these objects.
Prerequisites: 18.100A/B/P/Q. The intended audience for this class is students who have taken 18.100A or 18.100P, but you are more than welcome to attend lectures/take the class on listener if you have taken 18.100B or 18.100Q. I will be assuming basic knowledge of convergence, Cauchy sequences, open sets, and continuity. That being said, please ask me if you find any of these topics confusing still.
Materials:There is no official textbook, I will provide lecture notes. But there are some books/notes you may find useful:

[L] Lebl: Lebl's Real Analysis Vol. 1 available for download.
[TBB] Thomson, Bruckner, and Bruckner: Elementary Real Analysis textbook available for download.
[R] and of course, Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis.

Old Website: For the website used last year for this course, see 18.S097 IAP 2022.

Schedule (in reverse time order)

Tue Jan 16 Compact subset of R^n, motivated by norms and analysis on finite sets.
Lecture notes §3
References: [L, §7.4.2], [TBB, §13.12], [R, §4.3]
Th Jan 12 General theory of metric spaces. Developing the importance of open sets in relation to convergent sequences and continuous functions.
Lecture notes §2
Problemset 2, due Jan 18
References: [L, §§7.2-7.4.1], [TBB, §13.5-13.6,4.3-4.4]
Tue Jan 10 Definition of metric spaces, with many examples. Redefining terms from 18.100A/P in terms of metrics.
Lecture notes §1
Problemset 1, due Jan 13
References: [L, §7.1], [TBB, §§13.1–13.4], [R, §2.2]


Last updated: January 16, 2023