photo of Allan Donsig Allan Donsig
Professor & Vice Chair
Department of Mathematics
University of Nebraska--Lincoln

Office: Avery 205

Office Phone: 402-472-8128

Dept. Phone: 402-472-3731

Dept. Fax: 402-472-8466

E-mail: adonsig at unl dot edu (Forgive the non-machine readable address)

Office Hours: 1:30-2:30 Monday, 10:30-11:30 Wednesday, 1:30-2:30 Thursday, or by appointment

To make an appointment outside office hours, please send email or call. (It is fine to drop by outside office hours, but I may be busy.)


Teaching

All records for my courses are kept on Canvas If you have questions about a class, please come talk to me or send an email.

Spring 2019
Math 310 Introduction to Modern Algebra
Spring 2018
Math 314H Linear Algebra (Honors Course)
Math 107 Calculus II
Fall 2017
on sabbatical
Fall 2016
Math 425 Mathematical Analysis
Spring 2016
Math 415 Theory of Linear Transformations
Fall 2015
Math 106-650 Calculus I
Fall 2014
Math 923 Topics in Analysis: Operator Algebras
Spring 2014
Math 101 College Algebra
Spring 2013
Math 104 Business Calculus
Fall 2012
Math 811T Functions for High School Teachers
Spring 2012
Math 818 Introduction to Modern Algebra II
Fall 2011
Math 817 Introduction to Modern Algebra I
Spring 2011
Math 433 Nonlinear Optimization
Fall 2010
Math 221H Honors: Differential Equations
Math 221-005 Differential Equations
Spring 2010
Math 106-150 Analytic Geometry and Calculus I

Useful webpages for Mathematics Students

Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.---Malcolm Gladwell
Randy Pausch's Time Management Lecture This is not about math per se, but it will help you find the time to do what you need to do.
The Most Common Errors In Undergraduate Mathematics
Excerpts from How to Ace Calculus : The Streetwise Guide
How to Study Math Guide from the Ohio State University's Math Dept.
How to Succeed in Math from Saint Louis University.
How to succeed in University Calculus. This page is for students going to universities in atlantic Canada, but the advice is universal.
Calculus.org A general resource page for calculus.
HOW DO UNDERGRADUATES DO MATHEMATICS? A guide to studying mathematics at Oxford University Although this study guide is focused on Oxford, much of its advice is relevant (indeed, crucial) to anyone learning mathematics.
A Guide to Writing in Mathematics Classes
If you ever find yourself preparing an abstract or a summary of your own research, you should read How to get your abstract rejected. Heck, read it anyway, it's quite funny and you've probably seen all of the sins it outlines committed in the course texts you've had to read.

Research

My research interests are in operator algebra and operator theory. In particular, most of my papers are about limit algebras, infinite-dimensional operator algebras that are limits of finite-dimensional algebras. In spite of being "almost finite-dimensional", they have some quite suprising properties.

I've put more information, including abstracts of my papers, on a separate page.

Conferences/Events I Help Organize

Conferences/Events I Helped Organize


Real Analysis and Applications

book cover

Together with Kenneth R. Davidson of the University of Waterloo, I have written an introductory analysis textbook, called Real Analysis and Applications. The publisher, Springer-Verlag New York, has a webpage for the book. (This is an updated version of Real Analysis with Real Applications, published by Prentice-Hall in 2001.)

I've posted the table of contents and the preface for the book.

There is also a table of errata. Feel free to email us with comments on the book.

On a related note, I have a short list of articles and books that I've found useful in teaching analysis.

TeX, LaTeX, and AMS-LaTeX

These are typesetting programs that are defacto standards for mathematics and physics papers. The hardest part of getting started with them is finding good model documents to modify. In the absence of better models, I offer a few documents of my own, listed here. There are a multitude of good sites on TeX. I would particularly recommend the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network and the American Mathematical Society's page on TeX Resources.

There are two books I would particularly recommend:

The first is the original user's manual by the author of LaTeX.
But what matters most to me, personally, is being able to communicate to others my sense of what mathematical research is all about--the quest for truth and the inner joy that comes from surrendering oneself to it. 1

Alain Connes, Fields Medalist in Operator Algebras