CMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

David Mix Barrington

Fall 2017

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, finite state machines, and a bit of computability.

Instructor Contact Info: David Mix Barrington, 210 CMPSCI building, 545-4329, office hours for Fall 2017: Tue 11-12, Thu 3-4, Fri 2:30-3:30.

I generally answer my email fairly reliably.

TA and UCA Contact Info:

• TA's Matteo Brucato, Hia Ghosh, and Yuzhi Xiao
• UCA's Adam Elghazzawi and William Toohey

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 prerequisites though occasionally we let in a student who is taking one or the other at the same time as 250.

The course meets for three lecture meetings a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 1:25-2:30, in Goessmann 64. (We appear to have been unseccessful in getting a larger room.)

There is one discussion meeting per week for each of the four sections, at various times on midday Wednesdays as indicated on SPIRE. Most discussions will have a written assignment which you will carry out in groups. Discussion attendance is required, so that missing a discussion will incur a grade penalty. The TA's and I will cover the sections in various combinations, so they should be as interchangeable as we can make them.

The textbook is the current draft of my in-progress book, Discrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science. This will be available at Collective Copies in Amherst Center, starting on Wednesday 6 September. Prior versions of the textbook that were intended for CMPSCI 250 may be used -- the most recent versions of the book differ only by the correction of some minor errors.

The course is using the iClicker system, and the Moodle course management system. Basic information about the course will be on this site, and specifics of the course will be off of the Moodle main page when it is established soon.

• Course Requirements and Grading
• Learning Goals for the Course
• Lecture Slides from Spring 2014
• Exam Directory (with final exam and solution)
• Syllabus and Schedule

Announcements (3 January 2018):

• (3 Jan) I have posted the final exam and its solution. The scale on the final was A = 108, B = 90, C = 72. Final grades have been calculated and are shown on Moodle. I emailed some statistics about the exam and the final grades to the class via Moodle, and I will include those here soon.

• (26 Nov) I have posted the second midterm and its solution. The top score was 107, the median 77.5, and the low score 23. As with the first midterm, I moved the scale two points in your favor from the announced one, so a 93 was an A, 78 a B, 63 a C, 48 a D, and 33 an F. The distribution of grades on the exam was:
  • A+ (96-107): 9
  • A (91-95): 15
  • A- (86-90): 18
  • B+ (81-85): 24
  • B (76-80): 27
  • B- (71-75): 21
  • C+ (66-70): 18
  • C (61-65): 15
  • C- (56-60): 12
  • D+ (51-55): 13
  • D (46-50): 1
  • F (23-45): 8

• (20 Oct) I have posted the first midterm and its solution. The top score was 108, the median 74, and the low score 33. I moved the scale two points in your favor from the announced one, so a 93 was an A, 78 a B, 63 a C, 48 a D, and 33 an F. The distribution of grades on the exam was:
  • A+ (96-108): 21
  • A (91-95): 9
  • A- (86-90): 10
  • B+ (81-85): 25
  • B (76-80): 19
  • B- (71-75): 28
  • C+ (66-70): 22
  • C (61-65): 11
  • C- (56-60): 11
  • D+ (51-55): 11
  • D (46-50): 8
  • F (33-45): 8

• (2 Sept) I have put up the course requirements, learning goals, and syllabus pages. The new version of the textbook will be available at Collective Copies starting Wednesday morning, 6 September. The Moodle site is not yet up but will be soon.

• (2 Sept) There is NO DISCUSSION on the first day of class, Wedensday 6 September. The course will begin with the lecture at 1:25 on that day.

• (26 July) I know that there are several people with pending override requests for this course. (If you want to take the course and have not filled out a CICS override form, you should do so.) How many students we can accommodate will depend on whether we get a larger classroom, which is difficult to predict at this point. I will know more as term gets closer.

• (26 July) I am putting up only a preliminary version of the course website today. The full version of last spring's website is available here and has exams with solutions and a full syllabus. The link above is to the lecture slides from the Spring 2014 offering of this course -- our lectures this term will be similar and slides from this term will be posted on Moodle. This offering of CMPSCI 250 will be very similar to my recent ones.

Last modified 3 January 2018