First, I have to admit that I am very lost with the new material that was presented on Wednesday. I think it was just too much new stuff, moving too quickly and I couldn't process it as fast as we were going. Also, I spent hours on the homework, and I worked with Ashley to talk things out and I still haven't been able to do any of the problems (one of them I did, but I feel doubtful that it's right). I talked to at least 4 other students who also feel this way. I'm not sure what if anything you can do, or maybe I just need to spend some time having this reexplained to me one on one, but I am really struggling all of a sudden. I really want to do well in this class, and I know I can, but I'm doing the readings, putting in tons of time on the homework, going to office hours, and I'm just not sure what else to do.
This book seems to skip a lot of the middle steps in proofs. For example, I was understanding the proof of theorem 3.1.3.1 but then it didn't say why we had (a^kl +1)/(a^l+1) or why knowing that a^l + 1 divides a^n+1 tells us anything. The proof that is most confusing to me is probably the one involving the GCD of Mm and Mn. The hardest part may be just trying to remember what the Mersenne numbers actually mean because I kind of have to unpack the definition at each step of the proof in order to semi follow it. Which is difficult, since they're new. I kind of like the concept of perfect numbers because I can understand it and it's interesting that anyone thought to investigate such a concept.
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