A Brief Introduction to Classical and Adelic Algebraic ... - William Stein

Chapter 1
Preface
This book is based on notes I created for a one-semester undergraduate course on
Algebraic Number Theory, which I taught at Harvard during Spring 2004. The
primary sources for the course were chapter 1 of Swinnerton-Dyer’s book A Brief
Guide to Algebraic Number Theory [SD01] and chapter 2 of Cassels’s article Global
Fields [Cas67]. I wrote these notes by following closely the above two chapters; in
some cases I added substantial text and examples. For example, chapter 1 of [SD01]
is 30 pages, whereas my rewrite of it occupies over 100 pages. In contrast, I follow
[Cas67] more closely. I have no intent whatever to plagiarize. I acknowledge as such
those chapters in this book which are simply a close rewrite of [Cas67]. My goal is
to take the useful classical article ([Cas67]) and make it more accessible to students
by modernizing the notation, and adding additional explanations and examples.
I have no intent to publish this book with a traditional publisher, so it will
remain freely available indefinitely. If you have comments, corrections, suggestions
for additions, etc., please send them to me!
Copyright: William Stein, 2004.
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License: FREE! More precisely, this book my be freely redistributed, copied, or
even sold without requiring you to obtain written permission from me. You may
even extend or change this book, but this preface page must remain in any derived
work, and any derived work must also remain free, including the L ATEX source files.
In particular, I have no interest in making any money from this book.
Please send me any typos or corrections: was@math.harvard.edu.
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