Introduction to Course and Review of Prerequisite Material
Overview
You have to start somewhere! This introductory material includes brief introductions to the major topics of this course and associated learning goals — along with information about how the course will be organized and administered. Material from prerequisite courses, that will be used heavily in this course, is reviewed. Finally, a small amount of material that will be used heavily — and that might be new — is introduced.
This material will be discussed in the lecture presentation on Tuesday, September 2. It will be considered in tutorials on Monday, September 8 and Tuesday, September 9.
Supplemental Material — for Review Material
You should not need any reference material, for this, that is not provided on the course web site. However, a recent CPSC 251 or MATH 271 textbook might be useful. The following books have recently been used in textbooks in these courses.
- S. S. Epp, Discrete Mathematics with Applications
Fifth Edition, Brooks Cole, 2019
- K. H. Rosen, Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications
Eighth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2018
Lecture #1, Part One — Welcome to Computer Science 351! (Tuesday, September 2)
Why This is Included
It makes sense to start by saying a little bit about what this course is about. It organization is likely new — and might be somewhat surprising — so it makes sense to say a bit about this too.
Preparatory Viewing and Reading
Lecture #1, Part Two — Mathematics Review (Tuesday, September 2)
Why This is Included
When a required course is as large as this one, students start out with widely varying backgrounds. As a result, some students are disadvantaged (because they are “behind” the rest of the class) right at the start — and it is not always clear that they realize this.
This review material is being provided to help students to assess their backgrounds and to try to “catch up” with the rest of the class, if they need to.
Preparatory Viewing and Reading
-
Mathematics Review [ Video: 6:11 ]
- Part One — Sets, Sequences, Functions and Relations [ PDF: 5pp. ]
- Part Two — Definitions and Proofs [ PDF: 3pp. ]
- Part Three — Mathematical Induction [ PDF: 9pp. ]
Also of Interest
- An Introduction to Mathematical Induction [ YouTube Video: 12:14 ]
- Strong Form of Mathematical Induction [ YouTube Video: 10:08 ]
- A Guide to Mathematical Writing, by Dr. Kevin P. Lee [ PDF: 17pp. ]
Lecture #1, Part Three — Alphabets, Strings, and Languages (Tuesday, September 2)
Why This is Included
Alphabets, strings, and languages will be used to model computational problems in much of this course and in a considerable part of CPSC 413 as well. Students in this course should make sure that they understand these and can work with them, as soon as possible.
Preparatory Viewing and Reading
- Alphabets, Strings, and Languages [ Video: 4:07 ]
- Alphabets, Strings, and Languages ‐ Key Concepts [ PDF: 4pp. ]
Lecture Presentation
Also of Interest
- How To Take Study Notes: 5 Effective Note Taking Methods [ Web Site ]
- Greek Letters Used in Mathematics, Science, and Engineering [ Wikipedia ]
