3.1 Part 1, due on Wednesday, January 19

1. (Difficult) "What was the most difficult part of the material for you?"
The most difficult part of the material for me was some of the technical details with the new definitions. For example, a couple of them talk about 1-sub-R not equaling 0-sub-R and other equations equaling 0-sub-R. I do not understand the 1 not equaling 0 or the other equations equaling 0 especially because I do not know what the sub-R's after all these mean. I am so confused and I have no idea where that technicality came from or what it means.

2. (Reflective) Write something reflective about the reading. This could be the answer to the question "What was the most interesting part of the material?" or "How does this material connect to something else you have learned in mathematics?" or "How is this material useful/relevant to your intellectual or career interests?" or something else.
The most interesting part of the material was how you could make a ring out of a set of letters and you could even redefine what addition and multiplication are, in particular stuff like homework problem 11. I had never thought about doing this type of math with letters and with new definitions of addition, multiplication, etc. It is cool, and I think it makes it applicable to then apply this stuff to other types of numbers if you can do it with letters.