MATH 233: Non-constructive Methods in Combinatorics

Stanford University, Spring 2016



Lectures: Mon/Wed 9:00 - 10:15 AM, Building 200, Room 305
(NOTE THE CHANGE FROM OFFICIAL SCHEDULE!)
Instructor: Jan Vondrak (jvondrak@stanford.edu)
Office hours: Friday 3-4 (383-J)

Course description: This course is about methods in combinatorics that prove the existence of certain objects without constructing them explicitly.
We will cover several kinds of such methods: probabilistic, topological and algebraic. We will also discuss the computational question of constructing the respective objects efficiently.

Tentative topics: (in hindsight, clearly too ambitious) Course requirements:
Lecture notes: Template for scribes: Math233-lec-sample.tex

Supplemental material:
A summary of the Big O notation.