CS206 - SPRING 2012: WHAT TO READ BEFORE CLASS



The following list shows what I intend to cover in each class. After the class I will modify the entry to reflect what was actually covered. In this way this page will become a lecture diary for the course. If you try to read over this material in advance, it should make it easier to follow the class. It could also reduce note-taking if you just annotate the relevant course notes during the class. In parentheses I list the relevant sections in S. Ross, "A First Course in Probability", 8th Ed.



1. (Jan. 18, 2012) Bureauracracy. Reviewed some set theory. You should download Review Sheet 1 and begin reading the review of set theory.

2. (Jan. 23, 2012) Start basic ingredients of Probability: 1) Random experiment; sample space - many examples given; 2) Events, with many examples (2.2 - 2.4); 3) Probability measure, and some properties.

3. (Jan. 25, 2012) Continued. Conditional probability, the conditional probability formula, and examples. Other probability facts, Bayes Rule, and examples. (3.1-3.3)

4. (Jan. 30, 2012) Independence; pairwise independence; k-wise independence, mutual independence, with examples.
(3.3, 3.4)

5. (Feb 1, 2012) Begin counting and combinatorics: the basic principle of counting (cartesian product rule); ordered sampling, with replacement (this is balls-in-boxes) and without replacement (1.2, 1.3). Growth rate of n! and Stirlings formula.

6. (Feb. 6, 2012) Unordered sampling (combinations), binomial coefficients and properties: Pascal's relation and Pascal's triangle; Newton's binomial theorem and implications. Examples with unordered sampling. (1.3, 1.4)