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CS 499: Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, Spring 2019

Jiaotong University


Time: Week 1-8: Monday, 08:00 - 09:40, Week 1-16: Thursday, 10:00 - 11:40. Location:东中院4-303
Teacher: Dominik Scheder.
Teaching Assistant: 汤舒扬, Tang Shuyang (htftsy at gmail dot com), 王培新, Wang Peixin (wangpeixin at sjtu dot edu dot cn)
Textbook: An Invitation to Discrete Mathematics by Jiři Matoušek and Jaroslav Nešetřil
Material: Video lectures and corresponding slides can be found at Coursera or 好大学在线.
Grading: 50% final exam, 50% homework. The students will form groups of size 4-5. Homework will be handed in by every group.

Date

Week

#

Class

Self-Study

Monday, May 23, 2019

Week 13

20

Discussing questions about Homework 10. Existence of a maximum flow. Introducing Dinic' Algorithm.

Start with Homework 11. Here are the corresponding tex sources.

Watch the remaining three videos.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Week 12

19

Discussing the solution to Homework 10, especially (1) an uncountable chain in the powerset of the natural numbers, (2) an uncountable set of subsets of natural numbers such that all pairwise intersections are finite.
Several proofs (two to three) for each of these problems.

Watch videos:

Start with Homework 10. Here are the corresponding tex sources.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

Week 11

18

Discussing solutions to Homework 8. Giving hints about Homework 9.

Sunday, May 8 2019
(make up for Thursday, May 2)

Week 10

17

Set theory: infinite sets; natural numbers, integers, and rational numbers all have the same cardinality; real line, real plane, unit circle, and the set of infinite bit strings all have the same cardinality.

Start with Homework 9. Here are the corresponding tex sources.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Week 9

16

Discussing solutions to Homework 6 (graph automorphisms). Discussing questions about Homework 7 (minimum spanning trees).

Start with Homework 8. Here are the corresponding tex sources.

Read my brief lecture notes on infinite sets, which you will need for Homework 9.

Thursday, April 18, 2019

Week 8

15

Kirchhoff's Matrix Tree Theorem: computing the number of spanning trees by computing the determinant of a certain matrix.

Start with Homework 7. Here are the tex files of Homework 7.

Monday, April 15, 2019

Week 8

14

Finding the winner of the "smallest unique asymmetric tree game". Discussing Homework 6: proving that aut(G) divides n!. Briefly discussing Robot Wars again.

Watch videos:

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Week 7

13

Discussing the solution to Homework 4, in particular the Robot Wars. Class given by Zhang Chihao.

Monday, April 8, 2019

Week 7

12

Again playing the "Smallest unique asymmetric tree" game, this time hopefully determining a winner.

The number of trees on n vertices: alternative proof. Maybe Kirchhoff's Matrix Tree Theorem.

Watch videos: Start with Homework 6. Here are the tex files of Homework 6.

Thursday, April 4, 2019

Playing the "smallest unique tree" game and explaining several concepts along the way:

  • The difference between trees, rooted trees, ordered rooted trees.
  • Exploring all automorphisms of a graph and see that one can combine them (they form a group).
  • The difference between counting graphs on n vertices or unlabeled graphs, i.e., graphs up to isomorphism.
It turned out there is no winner of the game so far. We will repeat it on Monday. Please bring a small sheet of paper with an asymmetric tree on it.

Watch videos

Monday, April 1, 2019

Week 6

11

Discussing Homework 3, giving some hints about Homework 4.
Playing the "smallest unique" game on graphs.

Watch videos

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Week 5

10

The Pentagonal Number Theorem and a Recurrence for the Partition Numbers.

Introducing Homework 5: generalizations of the graph score theorem.

Start with Homework 5. Here are the tex files of Homework 5.

I updated the lecture notes on discrete probability.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Week 5

9

A bit about Homework 4: How to make those combinatorial identity proofs more formal.
Partition Numbers: some generating function magic.

Watch videos:

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Week 4

8

Discussing Homework 3. Probabilistic method: the crossing number inequality for graph diagrams.

Start with Homework 4. Here are the tex files of Homework 4.

I answered some of your questions concerning homework 3 in this text file. Thanks for all the good questions!

Watch videos:

Monday, March 18, 2019

Week 4

7

Discussing solutions to Homework 1, in particular how to prove the Inclusion Exclusion Formula without induction and how to recognize feasible sequences. Discrete probability: biased random walks on Z.

I updated the lecture notes on discrete probability.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Week 3

6

Disrete probability: unbiased random walk on a finite path; unbiased random walk on Z.

Monday, March 11, 2019

Week 3

5

Discussing some questions about Homework 2.
Methods for computing sums (like the first n squares; binomial coefficient times k2).

Start with Homework 3. Here are the tex files of Homework 3.

I answered some of your questions concerning homework 2 in this text file. Thanks for all the good questions!

Deadline for the final submission of Homework 1 is coming Sunday, 2019-03-17.

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Week 2

4

A closed formula for the Catalan numbers and two proofs: one using the "mirroring" technique, the other one placing 2n+1 symbols on a cycle.

Brief intro to Homework 2.

Watch videos:

Start reading my very basic lecture notes on discrete probability.

Start with Homework 2. Here are the tex files of Homework 2.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Week 2

3

Discussion of Homework 1 questions, mostly Exercise 3.3 (feasible sequences of set intersections). Starting with the Catalan numbers: counting ``mountain ranges'', ordered trees, and complete binary trees.

No video assignment this time.

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Week 1

2

Introduction to enumerative counting: the Fibonacci numbers.

Watch videos:

Monday, February 25, 2019

Week 1

1

Introduction.

Two riddles: tiling the 8x8 chessboard and the coin riddle.

Explaining the work flow of this class (homework, feedback, grading).

Watch videos on 好大学在线 or Coursera or (in smaller resolution) by clicking on the links below:

Please adhere to the class guidelines.

Start with Homework 1. Here are the tex files of Homework 1.


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