Thursday,

Today started with Molly explaining the history of Galois theory to those of us who happened to be in the Digital Scholarship Lab prior to kicking off today’s editing session. What she explained to us is too interesting to mention without explaining. Some of us in the Lab were looking at the chapter that is to be reviewed. The chapter covers Galois theory. Molly asked if any of us knew the story of Galois. No one had.

She proceeded to tell us that Galois was a man in his early twenties when he fell in love with a woman. As is the case in all good love stories, she said, there was another man also in love with this woman. Apparently early 19th century French protocol dictates that in this situation the men involved should duel for the hand of the woman. And it was so. The two men agreed to duel the next day. Uncertain of his fate, Galois wrote down his theory that evening and was killed the next day in the duel. For more on the story of Galois, see his Wikipedia entry.

What an interesting way to start the day! Yesterday, the teams moved on to edit chapters three and four. Today the teams will swap chapters and review them each a second time. With that, the book should be fully edited and almost ready for publishing. Dr. Savic has said that he will come into the lab tomorrow to work on the book and has invited his teams to join him in wrapping up some loose ends and for a thankful and celebratory dinner.

We also enjoyed a visit from the OU Writing center who may assist with editing the book as well.

Great visit to the Algebra #TextbookSprint from @moiraozias and the @ouwritingcenter – Thanks for coming! #OuOpenEd pic.twitter.com/fkAit2U5zs

— OU OpenEd (@OUOpenEd) July 15, 2015