.. Created by Adam Cunnningham on Mon April 25 2016.

**Week 1: August 29 - September 2**
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This week we get an intensive introduction to Python and to Jupyter Notebook, which will be our main development environment. We also start writing the functions that will be needed for the first assignment.

Introduction to MTH 337
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- Syllabus
- How the class is structured
- Expectations for the class

Why Python?
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- Free
- Readable
- Extensible
- Popular

Introduction to Jupyter Notebook
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- Cells
- The tool bar
- Using notebooks to develop and save code

Introduction to Python
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- The **print** function
- Numbers in Python - integers, floats, booleans
- Mathematical operations
- Variable assignment
- The **import** statement
- Python **math** module
- The **dir** function
- Comments
- Boolean expressions
- Conditional code - the **if** statement
- Loops - the **while** statement
- Defining functions using **def**

Greatest Common Divisor and the Euclidean Algorithm
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The *Euclidean Algorithm* was invented over 2000 years ago to find the greatest common divisor of two numbers. We learn how the algorithm works, together with the constructs we need to implement the algorithm in Python.