CMSC203 Discrete Structures, Sections 0201 & 0301, Spring 2006

News Archive

• [Tue May 16 15:28 2006]  GPG-signed progress reports have been sent via email.

• [Tue May 16 15:06 2006]  The final exam topics for CMSC203 are:
  1. Logic Puzzle/Knight vs Knaves
  2. Well-written proof of set containment. (I.e., prove X is a subset of Y.)
  3. Functions: 1-1, onto, bijections
  4. Big-Oh notation: estimate upper bounds for a given function
  5. Number Theory calculations: Chinese Remainder Theorem, Fermat's Little Lemma, etc.
  6. Proof using gcd and/or divisibility
  7. Proof by induction. Note: the question will not necessarily be numeric.
  8. Counting: permutations, combinations and other tricks
  9. Probability: including conditional probability and expected value
  10. Relations
  11. Graphs
  There will be 10-12 questions, equally weighted. Some questions may have parts.

• [Thu May 11 11:45 2006]  The final update to the syllabus.

• [Thu May 11 11:37 2006]  Homework 13 posted.

• [Tue May 02 09:45 2006]  Homework 12 posted.

• [Tue Apr 25 09:52 2006]  Homework 11 posted.

• [Tue Apr 18 15:58 2006]  Homework 10 posted.

• [Mon Apr 10 11:40 2006]  Homework 9 posted.

• [Mon Apr 10 11:26 2006]  Syllabus updated. We will not be covering Chapter 6 "Advanced Counting Techniques" as originally planned.

• [Thu Apr 06 13:39 2006]  More than you ever wanted to know about the Monty Hall Problem can be found at: LetsMakeADeal.com.

  Also, the first few pages of Marilyn vos Savant's book The Power of Logical Thinking can be perused on Amazon.com. Use ISBN 0312156278 and click on the picture of the book cover for a "look inside". The Monty Hall problem is described on page 6. It is followed by embarrassing remarks made by "professional mathematicians" claiming Ms. Savant is in error.

• [Tue Apr 04 11:22 2006]  A Washington Post article describing how 110 people won the second prize in the Powerball lottery last year: their lucky numbers were in a fortune cookie! What are the chances of that?

• [Tue Apr 04 09:55 2006]  Homework 8 posted.

• [Fri Mar 24 10:57 2006]  Homework 7 posted.

• [Fri Mar 17 11:15 2006]  Syllabus updated.

• [Thu Mar 16 12:05 2006]  GPG-signed progress reports have been sent via email.

• [Mon Mar 06 18:09 2006]  Homework 6 posted.

• [Tue Feb 28 15:16 2006]  Homework 5 posted.

• [Thu Feb 23 15:50 2006]  Some links:
  • Professor Gasarch in UMCP has a write up of an elementary proof of a weak version of the Prime Number Theorem: weakpnt.ps (PostScript).
    
  • www.mersenne.org has just about everything you've ever wanted to know about Mersenne primes and the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. There is a $100,000 award to the first person or group to discover a ten million digit prime number.

• [Mon Feb 20 13:05 2006]  Homework 4 posted.

• [Thu Feb 16 16:06 2006]  An updated syllabus has been posted. Note that there is no change in the dates of homeworks and quizzes.

• [Tue Feb 14 14:51 2006]  The Gilbert and Sullivan Archives and a Wikipedia article on Gilbert and Sullivan look like good places to the learn a bit about their comic operas.

• [Mon Feb 13 16:05 2006]  Homework 3 posted.

• [Wed Feb 08 22:58 2006]  The Evolution of Useful Things (ISBN 0-679-74039-2) by Henry Petroski is the book I mentioned in class that recounts "how everyday artifacts --- from forks and pins to paper clips and zippers --- came to be as they are." (Yes, it includes a short discussion on the evolution of staplers, but it is not nearly as interesting as the chapter on paper clips.)

• [Mon Feb 06 23:22 2006]  Homework 2 handout available in PDF: hw2.pdf. (Hardcopies will be distributed in class.)

• [Tue Jan 31 15:29 2006]  If you are interested in paradoxes and "true" propositions that are not provable, the book "Godel's Proof" by Ernest Nagel and James Newman (ISBN 0-8147-0325-9) is an excellent read. The book is technical, but quite accessible. Our library has two copies, there's also a new hard cover version (ISBN 0-8147-5816-9) available on the usual online sources.

• [Mon Jan 30 14:51 2006]  Homework 1 posted.

• [Thu Jan 26 12:44 2006]  The course description and syllabus are available in PDF: description.pdf, syllabus.pdf. Hard copies will be distributed on the first day of class.

• [Thu Jan 26 12:33 2006]  Note: Be aware of the schedule of in-class quizzes listed in the syllabus!
  The first quiz is on Thursday, February 23.

• [Thu Jan 26 12:33 2006]  Web page up.