Section 6.1 and 6.2 through the middle of pg. 147, due October 13

The most difficult part of this material for me was keeping all of the new terminology straight while trying to relate it to things we have done in the past so that I understand it. I don't really understand how the ideal generated by c1, c2, c3, .... is in fact an ideal. The cosets are also a little confusing to me, as well as the quotient ring R/I because I am confused as to how you "mod out" in this ring.

The most interesting part of this material for me was just the ideal itself. I thought it was interesting that there is a name for something that "absorbs products". Originally I would only think of the zero elements to be able to be ideals, but there is obviously more than that. The concept of ideals reminded me of the type of stuff you learn in genetics with dominant and recessive traits. To me an ideal was like this dominant trait that when combined with other stuff, still dominates (ie. when combined with other stuff it still ends up in the ideal).