Math 490: Topics in Mathematics (Discrete Math)

Fall 2008

General Information

Instructor: Chris Staecker (Personal Homepage)

Email: cstaecker@messiah.edu

Office: Frey 327

Office Hours: M 2-3, W 9-11, 2-3, F 12-1

Textbook: Johnsonbaugh, Discrete Mathematics, 7th edition

Class Meetings: MWF 3:00-3:50

Final Exam: Wednesday December 17, 4:00-6:00

Other Materials

• Syllabus (60KB PDF) LaTeX source
• Semester paper info (42KB PDF) LaTeX source
• Crazy Venn diagrams article (1.9MB PDF)
• Dijkstra's algorithm big example graph (90KB JPG)
• A random paper about knotting in graphs at arxiv.org
• A complete proof of the Robbins conjecture (114 KB PDF), based on the proof discovered by the computer program EQP

Coming Attractions

Assigned homework problems are from the "Exercises" at the end of each section (not from the "Section Review Exercises").

9/10: Homework #1 due

Section 1.1: 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, 19, 20, 31, 32, 77-83

9/17: Homework #2 due

Section 1.1: 61, 65-72 (use words and/or pictures), 91, 95
Section 1.2: 9, 10, 21, 24, 31
Section 1.3: 15, 18, 20, 32, 38, 39, 42
Section 1.5: 7-11, 49-52, 57, 62, 65
Section 2.1: 8, 13, 19, 23, 25, 37, 46, 55
Section 2.2: 1, 2, 15, 42, 44

9/24: Homework #3 due

Section 2.2: 32, 33, 38
Section 2.4: 2, 3, 14, 15 (use the result from 14), 25, 29, 30, 34
Section 4.1: 2

10/1: Homework #4 due

Section 4.1: 13, 14
Section 4.2: 21, 22
Section 4.3: 2, 5, 10 (prove your answer on these), 17, 20, 21, 34, 37, 45, 51, 55

10/3: Exam I

Covers material through and including 9/29

10/8: Homework #5 due

Section 4.4: 13, 14, 20, 22
That's all! (really)

10/15: Homework #6 due

Section 7.1: 40 (you can use some partial computations from class), 41, 42, 54
Section 7.2: 12, 14, 15, 22, 23, 34
And: these additional problems (28 KB PDF) LaTeX source

10/22: Homework #7 due

Section 7.3: 28-32, 55-57, 64, 65
Section 8.1: 15, 17, 18, 20, 25, 51, 52

10/29: Homework #8 due

Section 8.2: 10, 11, 12, 28, 29, 35, 36, 45, 46, 49
Section 8.3: 3, 4, 15, 25, 26, 36

10/31: Semester paper proposal due

 

11/5: Homework #9 due

Section 8.4: 1, 2, 3, 8
Section 8.5: 2, 14, 21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32
Section 8.6: 2, 8, 10, 39, 42

11/7: Exam II

Covers material through and including 11/3

11/12: Homework #10 due

Section 8.7: 2, 9, 11, 12, 15, 23, 25, 27
Section 9.1: 5, 6, 31, 32, 33, 39

11/14: Semester paper due

 

11/26: Homework #11 due

Section 9.2: 30, 31, 34, 35, 36
Section 9.3: 8, 9, 16, 22, 30
Section 9.4: 2, 3, 10, 11, 13, 21 (just 2, 3)
Section 9.5: 5, 6, 8, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24

12/3: Homework #12 due

Section 10.1: 2, 10
Section 10.2: 5, 15
Section 10.3: 2, 8, 17, 18
Section 10.4: 9, 12, 13, 14
Section 11.3: 3, 4, 5, 22 (you may reference "usual properties of sets" without re-proving them)

12/10: Homework #13 due

Section 11.1: 7, 8, 9, 21 (just 11, 12, just give the circuit), 22, 23, 26, 31, 33 (just give the circuits for 31, 33)
Section 11.2: 3, 5, 18
Section 11.4: 3, 16, 23, 24, 25 (just 3), 26 (just 15)
Read some papers on the wiki and do two exercises of your choice.

Final homework assignment (not collected)

Section 11.5: 4, 8, 17, 20, 34
And: these extra problems (39KB PDF) LaTeX source

12/17: Final exam

4:00 - 6:00