Course: MCS 591, Advanced Topics in Combinatorial Theory: Extremal combinatorics
Call no: 30028
Time: MWF 11:00-11:50pm
Place: 321 Taft Hall

Professor: Dhruv Mubayi
Office: 620 SEO
E-mail: mubayi@uic.edu
Course Web Page: http://www.math.uic.edu/~mubayi/591/Spring2014/Extremal.html
Office Hours: TBA

Grading Policies:
You grade will be based on occasional homework assignments, class presentations, and discussions.

Prerequisite: An undergraduate course in combinatorics/graph theory or probability, and the mathematical maturity of a (relatively advanced) graduate student.

Course Description: Extremal combinatorics studies the extreme value of a parameter over a class of discrete objects. The subject has been growing for the past century and by now it encompasses some of the most important contributions to combinatorics and has applications to many other disciplines including discrete geometry, number theory, coding theory, computer science. This course will study the modern developments in the subject focusing on graph and hypergraph theory. Throughout the course open problems will be presented that are suitable for thesis research.

A sampling of topics:


There is no text. We will use class notes and papers available on the internet.

HW 1 Due Monday March 3

HW 2 Due Wednesday April 2