CS 70: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science, Spring 2008

The goal of this course is to introduce students to ideas and techniques from discrete mathematics that are widely used in Computer Science. The course aims to present these ideas "in action"; each one will be geared towards a specific significant application. Thus, students will see the purpose of the techniques at the same time as learning about them.

Math55 and CS70 cover similar material; Math55, however, typically covers a wider range of topics in less depth and with fewer applications, and is less closely tailored to Computer Science. L&S Computer Science majors must take CS70; EECS students are strongly encouraged to take CS70 rather than Math55, especially if they are intending to major in Computer Science and/or if they found the more conceptual parts of CS61A enjoyable and relatively straightforward.

Personnel

Sections:
101. Tu 1:00-2:00, 7 Evans; Kleinman
102. Tu 2:00-3:00, 7 Evans; Hodgkinson
103. Tu 4:00-5:00, 246 Dwinelle; Hodgkinson
104. Tu 5:00-6:00, 246 Dwinelle; Xu (section notes)
105. W 9:00-10:00, 3102 Etcheverry; Kleinman

Office Hours:
Kleinman: Tu 2:00-3:00, W 10:00-11:00, 852 Evans
Hodgkinson: Th 1:00-3:00, 711 Soda (revised 4/22)
Xu: Th 10:00-11:00, 711 Soda
Wagner: Mon 1-2:30pm, 629 Soda

Announcements

Lectures

The following schedule is tentative and subject to change. The Rosen readings are optional, but may be useful in providing you with extra information and/or a treatment of a topic from a different perspective.

	Topic	Readings
1/23	Overview	Notes.
1/25	Propositional logic	Notes. [Rosen 1.1-1.4]
1/28	Proofs	Notes. [Rosen 1.5-1.7]
1/30	More proofs	(cont. from above)
2/1	Induction	Notes. [Rosen 4.1]
2/4	Induction, cont.	(cont. from above)
2/6	Strong induction	Notes. [Rosen 4.2]
2/6	Well-ordering, recursive algorithms	Notes. [Rosen 4.2, 4.3]
2/11	Stable marriage	Notes (revised 2/12).
2/13	Cake cutting	Notes.
2/15	Modular arithmetic	Notes. [Rosen 3.4]
2/18	No class!
2/20	gcd, algorithmic complexity	(cont. from above) [Rosen 3.6]
2/22	Euclid's algorithm	(cont. from above)
2/25	Modular inverses, extended Euclidean algorithm	(cont. from above)
2/27	Review
2/29	Midterm 1
3/3	Polynomials, Secret sharing	Notes.
3/5	Error-correcting codes	Notes.
3/7	Fingerprints	Notes.
3/10	Graphs	Notes. [Rosen 9.1, 9.2, 9.5]
3/12	Intro to counting	Notes. [Rosen 5.1, 5.2, 5.3]
3/14	Advanced counting	(cont. from above) [Rosen 5.4, 5.5]
3/17	Guest lecture: Combinatorial hashing	Slides: pdf, pdf (6-up), powerpoint; rearranger.scm, rearranger example.
3/19	Intro to probability	Notes. [Rosen 6.1]
3/21	Conditional probability	Notes. [Rosen 6.2]
3/24-28	No class! Enjoy Spring break.
3/31	Conditional probability, cont.	(cont. from above) [Rosen 6.3]
4/2	Hashing	Notes.
4/4	Load balancing	(cont. from above)
4/7	Review
4/9	Midterm 2
4/11	Random variables	Notes. [Rosen 6.4]
4/14	Expected values	(cont. from above) [Rosen 6.4]
4/16	Linearity of expectation	(cont. from above) [Rosen 6.4]
4/18	Variance	Notes.
4/21	Variance	(cont. from above)
4/23	Important distributions	Notes.
4/25	How to lie with statistics	Notes.
4/28	Tail bounds, Chebyshev's inequality	(see Notes from 4/18)
4/30	Polling	Notes.
5/2	I.i.d. random variables, Central limit theorem	(cont. from above)
5/5	Infinity, countability	Notes.
5/7	Diagonalization	(cont. from above)
5/9	Computability, Halting problem, Godel's theorem	Notes.
5/12	TBD

Section notes

Homeworks

Homeworks will be submitted online. Paper submissions will not be accepted. Submit the Latex source and the resulting PDF; information on using Latex is available.

Quizzes

Quizzes must be completed online once a week, before midnight on each Sunday. The quizzes will check your progress so far, so you should be doing the reading for the prior week before taking the quiz. Quizzes must be done on your own (no collaboration, and no discussion of the questions or your answers with others).

Exams

Grading

The grading standard is available and has been fixed at the beginning of the course:

COURSE POLICIES

If you have a question, your best option is to post a message to the newsgroup. The staff (instructor and TAs) will check the newsgroup regularly, and if you use the newsgroup, other students will be able to help you too. When using the newsgroup, please avoid off-topic discussions, and please do not post answers to homework questions before the homework is due.

If your question is personal or not of interest to other students, you may send email to cs70@imail.eecs. Email to this address is forwarded to the instructor and all TAs. We prefer that you use this address, rather than directly emailing the instructor and/or your TA. If you wish to talk with one of us individually, you are welcome to come to our office hours. If the office hours are not convenient, you may make an appointment with any of us by email. Please reserve email for the questions you can't get answered in office hours, in discussion sections, or through the newsgroup.

In a class this large, it can be challenging for the instructor to gauge how smoothly the class is going. We always welcome any feedback on what we could be doing better. If you would like to send anonymous comments or criticisms, please feel free to use an anonymous remailer like this one to avoid revealing your identity.

Computer accounts: We will use 'named' accounts this semester. Further information is here. After you have obtained your account, you will need to register with our grading software. See these instructions.

Collaboration: You are encouraged to work on homework problems in study groups of two to four people; however, you must always write up the solutions on your own, and you must never read or copy the solutions of other students. Similarly, you may use books or online resources to help solve homework problems, but you must always credit all such sources in your writeup and you must never copy material verbatim. Warning: Your attention is drawn to the Department's Policy on Academic Dishonesty. In particular, you should be aware that copying solutions, in whole or in part, from other students in the class or any other source without acknowledgment constitutes cheating. Any student found to be cheating risks automatically failing the class and being referred to the Office of Student Conduct.

Regrading Policies: Regrading of homeworks or exams will only be undertaken in cases where you believe there has been a genuine error or misunderstanding. Bear in mind that our primary aim in grading is consistency, so that all students are treated the same; for this reason, we will not adjust the score of one student on an issue of partial credit unless the score allocated clearly deviates from the grading policy we adopted for that problem. If you wish to request a regrading of a homework or exam, you must return it to your section TA with a written note on a separate piece of paper explaining the problem. The entire assignment may be regraded, so be sure to check the solutions to confirm that your overall score will go up after regrading. All such requests must be received within one week from the date on which the homework or exam was made available for return.

Some Helpful Hints

1. Don't fall behind! In a conceptual class such as this, it is particularly important to maintain a steady effort throughout the semester, rather than hope to cram just before homework deadlines or exams. This is because it takes time and practice for the ideas to sink in. Make sure you allocate a sufficient number of hours every week to the class, including enough time for reading and understanding the material as well as for doing assignments. (As a rough guide, you should expect to do at least one hour of reading and two hours of problem solving for each hour of lecture.) Even though this class does not have any major projects, you should plan to spend as much time on it as on any of your other technical classes.

2. Take the homeworks seriously! The homeworks are explicitly designed to help you to learn the material as you go along. Although the numerical weight of the homeworks is not huge, there is usually a strong correlation between homework scores and final grades in the class. Also, regardless of how well you did on the homework, read the sample solutions, even for the problems you got right. You may well learn a different way of looking at the problem, and you may also benefit from emulating the style of the solutions. (In science people learn a lot from emulating the approach of more experienced scientists.)

3. Make use of office hours! The instructor and TAs hold office hours expressly to help you. It is often surprising how many students do not take advantage of this service. You are free to attend as many office hours as you wish (you are not constrained just to use the office hours of your section TA). You will also likely get more out of an office hour if you have spent a little time in advance thinking about the questions you have, and formulating them precisely. (In fact, this process can often lead you to a solution yourself!)

4. Take part in discussion sections! Discussion sections are not auxiliary lectures. They are an opportunity for interactive learning. The success of a discussion section depends largely on the willingness of students to participate actively in it. As with office hours, the better prepared you are for the discussion, the more you are likely to get out of it.

5. Form study groups! As stated above, you are encouraged to form small groups (two to four people) to work together on homeworks and on understanding the class material on a regular basis. In addition to being fun, this can save you a lot of time by generating ideas quickly and preventing you from getting hung up on some point or other. Of course, it is your responsibility to ensure that you contribute actively to the group; passive listening will likely not help you much. And recall the caveat above that you must write up your solutions on your own.