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Thursday, December 23

The Math 494 webpage is now up (in a preliminary version). This webpage will shortly be moved to an archive address of http://www.math.wustl.edu/~russw/f10.math493/ -- it will also continue to be linked from the Teaching section of my homepage, and from the department list of syllabi webpages.

Thursday, December 23

The final exam is graded, and scores are posted on Telesis. I regard a score in the 30s as an A, and a score in the 20s as a B.

The final is posted here, and I've written some brief solutions here.

Final grades were determined by frobnicating homework scores according to a fair and very favorable formula (scaling certain homeworks up, dropping the lowest score, having reasonable expectations), then adding scores according to the formula in the syllabus.

Thursday, December 16

The last homework is graded, and can be picked up during my office hours on Friday or Monday.

Monday, December 13

I've now posted a high-level topics list for the new topics covered by the final.

Friday, December 10

Suggested study problems are posted in the homework section.
My office hours will be Mon/Tues/Wed 10:00 - 11:30am, Thurs/Fri 2:00 - 4:00pm, and next Monday 11:00am - 1:00pm.

Wednesday, December 8

Don't forget to fill out evaluations!

Tuesday, December 7

Now posted is a proof of the Chevyshev inequality for continuous random variables.

Wednesday, November 24

Happy Thanksgiving! I've posted grades in Telesis.
The high score was 29, the low score was 11. The median was 22.
I estimate that the boundary between an A and a B is around 23, and the boundary between a B and a C is around 16.

Monday, November 15

Also, if anyone picked up an extra copy of the textbook on Friday, please bring it to me.

Monday, November 15

Exam 2 is posted online. Note that there were two variants of the exams, which differed only in the ordering of the T/F questions.
Also available are a set of solutions.

Tuesday, November 9

The topics from Chapter 3.3 that will appear on the exam are restricted to the single 2-shuffle model, and variation distance. Specifically, I'm taking multiple shuffles and the proof that "7 shuffles suffices" off the table.

Sunday, November 7

To help you study, I've posted a high-level list of some of the main topics that will be covered on Exam 2 this Friday.

Saturday, November 6

On problem 38, you can assume that X₁ and X₂ are continuous random variables. (How would the proof for discrete random variables work?)

Tuesday, October 26

In problem 32, the set of events corresponding to each edge in the graph being "open" should be taken to be mutually independent.
Also, I've posted a solution to HW6 #63a.

Monday, October 18

Note that "rising" sequence in p131 #1 refers to what we called in class a "rising-by-1" sequence. (I like my terminology better -- "rising" sounds like the opposite of fall, which is not actually so.)

Wednesday, October 6

Exam 1 is posted online. Note that there were two variants of the exams, which differed only in the ordering of the T/F questions.

Sunday, October 3

To help you study, I've posted a high-level list of some of the main topics that will be covered on Exam 1 this Wednesday.
I've also posted detailed solutions to HW 2 Problem 10 on the solutions section of the web page.

Tuesday, September 28

Problem 11 is vague as to whether one should find the probability that a fixed candidate gets the job or that some candidate gets the job. Either interpretation is fine, as long as your writeup makes it clear which you are using.

Wednesday, September 22

Homework 1 was returned today. A selection of 4 problems were graded, each out of 5 points, so that the entire homework is out of 20 points.

Wednesday, September 15

A runnable version of the simulation from Homework 1 is available here.
(Homework 2 is now posted.)

Monday, September 13

I've set my office hours for Tuesday 1 - 3 pm. After class is often also a good time to grab me, if you have a few quick questions.

Saturday, September 11

The Java programs that we've been running in class are linked from the links page. If you're puzzling over the simulation problem on the homework, then their source is similar, and looking at it may be somewhat helpful.

Wednesday, September 8

The first homework is posted in the homework section.

The first exam date has changed to Oct 13 Oct 6 (syllabus updated).

Friday, September 3

We noticed on Wednesday that in 30 coin flips, we often get 5 flips in a row which are the same (all heads or all tails).
I've modified one of the book programs to simulate this -- click here to try it!

Saturday, August 21

Welcome to Math 493! The Syllabus and Schedule are linked at the left.

Last modified January 10, 2011