Math 112 (Introductory Discrete Mathematics), spring semester, 2004/5

Instructors:

Ayşe Berkman, Mahmut Kuzucuoğlu and David Pierce

Catalogue description:

Basic counting: The sum and product rules, the pigeonhole principle, generalized permutations and combinations. The binomial theorem. Discrete probability. Inclusion-Exclusion. Recurrence relations. Introduction to graphs and trees.

Detailed description:

We aim to answer the following sorts of questions, many of which we shall express in terms of physical situations, not just abstractly as here: Concerning probability, we introduce the notions of random experiment, sample space, outcome, and event, along with a measure that assigns a probability to each event. Probabilities respect a version of the Inclusion-Exclusion Principle. There are notions of conditional probability and independent events. A Bernoulli process consists of Bernoulli trials: identical but independent random experiments with just two outcomes each.

Our main goal is to recognize and work with common themes in various physical situations involving numbers (or objects repeated finitely many times).

References:

Examinations:

  1. March 22 (Tuesday, 17.40), on ch. 1, sections 1–5, and ch. 2, sections 1, 2 and 4.
  2. April 26 (Tuesday), on §§3.1–3, 3.5–7, 4.1, 4.2, 4.5
  3. Final exam (on the subjects covered in the in-term exams, along with: counting partitions of a set; the Inclusion-Exclusion Principle; and probability)
  4. Make-up exam (for those who have made arrangements with their teachers): June 13 (Monday, 9.30), in M-104.
Solutions

Web-pages from some previous years:

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Last change: 2005, May 26
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