Reading Group on The Probabilistic Method -- Fall 2020

When Wednesdays 10:00 a.m - 12:00 p.m.
Where Google Meet call

Guidelines


  • The plan is to study each chapter following the book's order. For each chapter there will be 1 or 2 presentation meetings, followed by 1 problem discussion meeting.
  • Each presentation will be led by 1 or 2 people, using Jamboard (or similar) or slides. The presentation should be self-contained, and assume no previous knowledge of the material.
  • Reading the material before the meetings is encouraged, but not necessary (except for the leader/s!).
  • It's absolutely fine if, as the presentation leader, you don't understand some parts of the material. But please be straight about it.
  • After a while, it would be really nice to present related SODA/FOCS/STOC papers that use probabilistic techniques.

    • Calendar



    # Date Topics Leader/s Sections
    1 Wed 09/16 Ramsey numbers, tournaments 1 Guido 1.1, 1.2
    2 Wed 09/23 Tournaments 2, dominating sets 1 Guido 1.2
    3 Wed 09/30 Dominating sets 2, hypergraphs 1 Guido 1.2, 1.3
    4 Wed 10/07 Linearity of expectation Arghya
    5 ?? ?? ??
    6 ?? ?? ??

    Resources

  • Books:
  • Related courses:
  • Lecture notes:

    • Bibliography