640:477

MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF PROBABILITY

FALL 2013

Basic information

• Instructor: Professor Michael Saks
  • Hill Center 430
  • saks -at- math -dot- rutgers -dot- edu
  • Office hours
• Text: Sheldon Ross, A First Course in Probability, Ninth Edition ; ISBN: 978-0-321-79477-2. Pearson/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, 2014. [NOTE: The 7th or 8th edition of the book will probsbly be adequate, though there may be a discrepancy between the problem numbering for the assignment.]
• Prerequisite: Third semester calculus (640:251 or equivalent) is an unwaivable prerequisite: a working knowledge of multiple integrals is essential. Also, please be aware that a student can receive credit for at most one of the courses 01:640:477, 01:198:206, 01:960:381, and 14:330:321.
• Tentative syllabus
• Homework Assignments
• Exam schedule and information
• Information on grading

Course announcements and supplementary information

• Posted 12-11-13. I will be out of town from 12/13 to 12/19. In my absence the following Professors are available to answer questions about the course.
  • Professor Ocone (Hill 438) Mon, 12/16 from 10:00-12:00 and from 1:00-3:00.
  • Professor Kiessling (Hill 534) Wed 12/18 from 10:00-12:00.
  • Professor Goldstein (Hill 710) does not have set hours. If you happen to be at Hill Center you can drop by and see if he's available. Otherwise email him to agree on a time oldstein@math.rutgers.edu
• Posted 12-11-13. Problem solving session Thursday 12/12 at 10AM in Hill 124.
• Posted 11-26-13. Office hour for Tuesday 12/3 is cancelled.
• Posted 11-21-13. Solutions for Exam 2 are now available.
• Posted 11-11-13. I have posted a list of practice problems from the book as Assignment 8. These will not be due, but are recommended as practice for the exam.
• Posted 11-10-13. My office hour Tuesday 11-12-13 will be from 1:00 to 2:00 PM (instead of 12:00-1:00PM).
• Posted 11-8-13. There will be no assignment due on Thursday 11/14. Rather than assign new problems this week, I would like you to spend time on the practice problems in the book (the ones listed on previous assignments, and others in chapters 4 and 5 in the book). I also strongly encourage you to make use of office hours to clear up any problems you're having with the material. Solutions to Assignment 7 will be posted within the next few days.
• Posted 11-6-13. Posted a revision of the solutions to assignment 6, correcting a couple of typos, and adding an alternative solutions method for Problem 4, part b.
• Posted 10-31-13. Homework 7 is posted. Some of the material for the homework will be covered in class on Monday; you can get started on the problems by referring to chapter 5 in the textbookl.
• Posted 10-30-13. Homework 6 has been revised to correct an error in problem 4. (The pdf given for X and Y should be f(x)=e^{-x} for x>=0 and f(x)=0 for x<0.)
• Posted 10-22-13. Solutions for Exam 1 are now available.
• Posted 10-14-13. Grades for exam 1 are posted on Sakai. I do not
• Posted 10-28-13. Homework 6 has been revised to correct an error in problem 1. (The definition of the function f(x) did not make sense before.) The new version is dated 10-28-13
• Posted 10-22-13. Solutions for Exam 1 are now available.
• Posted 10-14-13. Grades for exam 1 are posted on Sakai. I do not make firm grade cutoffs for individual exams, but here's a rough idea of what the score means. There were a small number of scores in the 90's which are A's. A significant majority of students scored in the range 59 to 80 and these are in the C to B range. Scores in the 40-50 range are borderline F/D. Scores below 40 are F's. I recommend that students who are doing poorly should either consult with me about ways to improve their mastery of the material, or should drop the course.
• Posted 10-14-13. Office hour for Wednesday 10-16 is cancelled.
• Posted 10-13-13. I have updated the solutions to assignment 4, to include a correction to the solution of Problem 2b.
• Posted 10-13-13. No calculators or electronic devices may be used on the exam. You do not need to simplify the expressions for your answers.
• Posted 10-10-13 The exam is Monday October 14. There will be no assignment due on Thursday October 17.
• Posted 10-9-13 Hint on Assignment 4, problem 1. It will help to recall a technique from earlier classes. Suppose you have two quantities x and z and you want to express z as a function of x. Suppose that y is another quantity and you know how to express z as a function of y, so z=h(y) where h is known. How can you use this to express z as a function of x? If you can find a function g so that y=g(x), then you can substitute g(x) in for y and get z=h(g(x)). For this problem you might want to take y to be the number of correct answers, and x to be the total score.
• Posted 9-26-13: I have changed my office hours based on the ``doodle'' poll.
• (Posted 9-12-13) I have revised HW assignment 1 to include some additional problems. The new expanded assignment is due September 19. When you download the assignment make sure that the version date is Sept 12. (You may need to clear the cache on your browser.)
• As you can see from the tentative syllabus, we will cover most of the book. This is a substantial amount of material; we start fast and it is important not to fall behind.
• The way to learn mathematics is to do problems! There are lots of examples in the book to serve as models, and there are lots of good exercises. Do the assigned problems, and then do a few others.
• Make use of office hours. If you have trouble with course material, especially homework problems, come see me. Don't wait until just before the exam.
• Welcome to the Fall 2013 semester!