About This Course

The goal of this course is to introduce students to ideas and techniques from discrete mathematics that are widely used in computer science. This course teaches the students techniques in how to think logically and mathematically and apply these techniques in solving problems. For instance, to specify computational problems precisely, one needs to abstract the detail and then use mathematical objects such as sets, functions, relations, orders and sequences; to prove that a proposed solution does work as specified, one need to apply the principles of mathematical logic, and to use proof techniques such as induction; and to reason about the efficiency of an algorithm, one often needs to count the size of complex mathematical objects. To achieve this goal, students will learn logic and proof, sets, functions, relations, graphs as well as algorithms and mathematical reasoning.