CMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

David Mix Barrington

Fall, 2007

This is the home page for CMPSCI 250. CMPSCI 250 is the undergraduate core course in discrete mathematics and will deal with logic, elementary number theory, proof by induction, recursion on trees, search algorithms, counting, and probability.

Instructor Contact Info: David Mix Barrington, 210 CMPSCI building, 545-4329, office hours Tues, Wed, Thu, and Fri 11-12 am. I generally answer my email fairly reliably.

TA Contact Info: Siddharth Srivastava, siddhart@cs.umass.edu, 5-2502. Office hours in LGRT 220, Mon 4-5 and Tue 2:30-3:30.

The course is primarily intended for undergraduates in computer science and related majors such as mathematics or computer engineering. CMPSCI 187 (programming with data structures) and MATH 132 (Calculus II) are corequisites and in fact most students in the course have already taken both.

The course will meet for three lecture meetings a week, MWF 2:30-3:20 in ELAB 323.

There is one discussion section, meeting Wednesday 1:25-2:15, also in ELAB 323. This will consist of students solving specific problems alone or in groups and handing answers in, so that missing a discussion will incur a grade penalty. (Note that there is no discussion meeting on Wed 5 September, the first day of class.)

There is also an honors section for the course called CMPSCI H11, a one-credit seminar intended for undergraduates in Commonwealth College (but open to non-CC students as well if there is room). In this we will read Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach and discuss how it relates to the topic of the main course. The seminar will meet on Fridays 1:25-2:15 in room 343 of the computer science building, beginning 14 September.

Announcements (21 December 2007):

Last modified 21 December 2007