18.304 Undergraduate Seminar in Discrete Mathematics

Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays 12pm -- 1pm

Room 2-132

Course Syllabus


Instructor: Sami Assaf, 4-182, ext. 8-6895, sassaf [AT] math.mit.edu
Office Hours: Wednesdays & Fridays 3pm -- 4pm and by appointment

Schedule of Talks:
(Remember, to get credit for participating, DO NOT FALL ASLEEP during someone's presentation!)

Date Speaker Topic
W 2/04 Sami Reading and writing mathematics papers
F 2/06 Sami Giving a mathematics presentation
M 2/09 Annie and Erik How to Guard Stata
W 2/11 Shinnyih and Illan I want my own lady
F 2/13 Ervin and Briana From fractals to fractions
T 2/17 Jaime and Matt RSA Encryption
W 2/18 Joshua EEA and its uses
F 2/20 Gregg Musiker Cluster algebras
M 2/23 Annie The many associations of the associahedron I
W 2/25 Annie The many associations of the associahedron II
F 2/27 Shinnyih Bijection+Sequence=Labelled Tree?
M 3/02 Erik Latin Squares
W 3/04 Jaime Mathematical games of no chance
F 3/06 Josephine Yu Tropical Geometry
M 3/09 Illan Ramsey Theory
W 3/11 Brianna Secrets at the grocery store
F 3/13 Ervin Travelling salesman
F 3/20 Sami Card shuffling
W 3/18 Joshua The 8 Queens problem
M 3/16 Matt How to win at blackjack
M 3/30 Sami Term paper tips
W 4/01 Sami How to q-count
F 4/03 Ervin Magic Squares
M 4/06 Erik P versus NP
W 4/08 Jaime Grobner bases
F 4/10 Matt Neural networks
M 4/13 Illan Random walks
W 4/15 Shinnyih Independent Sets
F 4/17 Brianna The Birthday Problem
W 4/22 Annie Set polytopes
F 4/24 Joshua Sudoku
M 4/27 Matt Matchings in graphs
W 4/29 Matt Matchings in graphs (Take 2)
F 5/01 Sick day No Class
M 5/04 Everyone 5 minutes about my term paper
W 5/06 Sami The mathematics of Rubik's cube
F 5/08 Jaime Cryptographic applications of Grobner bases
M 5/11 Shinnyih A bijective proof of the Reciprocity Theorem
W 5/13 Briana The beauty of RSA





Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics.
-- S. Poisson