CS109: Probability for Computer Scientists, Spring 2024

Announcements and Updates

• Thu, May 9: WiCS 2024-2025 Board Applications are now open! If you are passionate about empowering and supporting inclusion in tech, we would love to see you apply. Being a board member is a year-long commitment to working with a team where you can have a huge impact in the WiCS Community. No prior exposure to WiCS necessary to apply for board! Apply here by Saturday, May 18^th at 11:59pm.
  
  
• Sun, May 5: Here are a bunch of announcements I want to see in print in a place more permanent than an email briefing:
  
  
  • Problem Set 2 and Problem Set 2 EC grades have been released, so go see how you did and work to resolve any misconceptions identified by the CAs who graded the free response problems.
  • Concept checks are now due at 11:59pm on Tuesdays for the rest of the quarter. Apparently 12:00pm looks like midnight to some students, so I'm going with the last possible minute something can be due on a Tuesday. 😊
  • Your Week 7 Exam is scheduled for a week from this Wednesday, on May 15^th from 7:00pm until 9:00pm in Cemex Auditorium. The Exam Prep has been updated to include a bunch of additional practice exams, including my own Week 7 Exam from last quarter. Note that all of my other Week 7 Exams have been cannibalized for section handouts and problem sets, so that's why I only have one Week 7 Exam of my own to share.
  • We will hold a one-hour review session on Tuesday, May 14^th to help you prepare for the Week 7 Exam. Details are forthcoming, but assume 10:30am somewhere, and know that We'll meet from 10:30am until 11:50am in NVIDIA Auditorium, and it'll be recorded so those who can't attend will be able to watch remotely, either live or asynchronously later that day.

  This Week

  Topic

  Materials

  Assignments

  Optional Readings

  Week 7

  May 13

  Lecture 19: Sampling and Bootstrapping

  slides annotated video
  concept-check demo

  PSet 4 In

  Ross: No assigned reading,
  Piech: Sampling, Bootstrapping

  May 15

  Lecture 20: Parameters and MLE

  slides annotated video
  concept-check demo

  PSet 5 Out

  Ross: No assigned reading,
  Piech: MLE, MLE Normal, MLE Mixture

  May 16

  Section 6: Central Limit Theorem, Sampling Theory

  handout solution

  May 17

  Lecture 21: Beta and Conjugate Distributions

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 5.6.1-5.6.4, 7.5-7.6,
  Piech: Beta

  Schedule

  Week 1

  April 01

  Lecture 1: Introductions

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Piech: Counting

  April 03

  Lecture 2: Permutations and Combinations

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  PSet 1 Out

  Piech: Combinatorics

  April 05

  Lecture 3: Axioms of Probability

  slides annotated video
  demo concept-check

  Ross: Ch 2.1-2.5, 2.7
  Piech: Probability, Equally Likely Outcomes

  Week 2

  April 08

  Lecture 4: Conditional Probability and Bayes Rule

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 3-1-3.3
  Piech: Conditional Probability, Law of Total Probability, Bayes Theorem

  April 10

  Lecture 5: Independence

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 3.4-3.5
  Piech: Independence

  April 11

  Section 1: Combinatorics and Probability

  handout solution

  April 12

  Lecture 6: Random Variables and Expectation
  

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  PSet 1 In, PSet 2 Out
  

  Ross: Ch 4.1-4.4
  Piech: Random Variables, Probability Mass Functions

  Week 3

  April 15

  Lecture 7: Variance, Bernoulli, Binomial

  slides annotated video
  demo concept-check

  Ross: Ch 4.5-4.6
  Piech: Variance, Bernoulli, Binomial

  April 17

  Lecture 8: Poisson and Approximations

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: 4.7-4.10
  Piech: Poisson

  April 18

  Section 2: Random Variables and Expectation

  handout solution

  April 19

  Lecture 9: Continuous Random Variables
  

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 5.1-5.3, 5.5
  Piech: Continuous RVs

  Week 4

  April 22

  Lecture 10: The Normal Distribution
  

  slides annotated video
  demo concept-check

  PSet 2 In

  Ross: Ch 5.4,
  Piech: Gaussian Distributions, Binomial Approximations

  April 24

  Lecture 11: Joint Distributions

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  PSet 3 Out

  Ross: Ch 6.1,
  Piech: Joint Probability, Multinomials, Federalist Papers

  April 25

  Section 3: Discrete and Continuous Random Variables

  handout solution

  April 26

  Lecture 12: Independent Random Variables

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 6.2-6.3,
  Piech: Adding Random Variables

  Week 5

  April 29

  Lecture 13: Joint RV Statistics

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 6.4-6.5,
  Piech: Correlation

  May 1

  Lecture 14: Conditional Expectation

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: CH 7.1-7.2
  Piech: No assigned reading,
  

  May 02

  Section 4: Normal Distributions and Joint Distributions

  handout solution

  May 03

  Lecture 15: General Inference

  slides annotated video
  concept-check demo

  PSet 3 In, PSet 4 Out, CS109 Challenge Out

  Ross: No assigned reading,
  Piech: Inference

  Week 6

  May 06

  Lecture 16: Continuous Joint Distributions

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 6.1,
  Piech: Continuous Joint Distributions

  May 08

  Lecture 17: Continuous Joint Distributions II

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 7.3-7.4,
  Piech: no assigned reading

  May 09

  Section 5: Conditional Expectation, Bayesian Networks, Inference

  handout solution

  May 10

  Lecture 18: Central Limit Theorem

  slides annotated video
  concept-check sampling-demo clt-demo

  Ross: Ch 8.3,
  Piech: Central Limit Theorem

  Week 7

  May 13

  Lecture 19: Sampling and Bootstrapping

  slides annotated video
  concept-check demo

  PSet 4 In

  Ross: No assigned reading,
  Piech: Sampling, Bootstrapping

  May 15

  Lecture 20: Parameters and MLE

  slides annotated video
  concept-check demo

  PSet 5 Out

  Ross: No assigned reading,
  Piech: MLE, MLE Normal, MLE Mixture

  May 16

  Section 6: Central Limit Theorem, Sampling Theory

  handout solution

  May 17

  Lecture 21: Beta and Conjugate Distributions

  slides annotated video
  concept-check

  Ross: Ch 5.6.1-5.6.4, 7.5-7.6,
  Piech: Beta

  Week 8

  May 20

  Lecture 22: Maximum a Posteriori

  slides

  Ross: No assigned reading.,
  Piech: Maximum a Posteriori

  May 22

  Lecture 23: Naive Bayes

  Ross: No assigned reading.,
  Piech: Machine Learning, Naive Bayes

  May 23

  Section 7: MLE, Beta, and MAP

  May 24

  Lecture 24: Linear Regression, Gradient Ascent

  PSet 5 In, PSet 6 Out

  Ross: No assigned reading.,
  Piech: No assigned reading.

  Note that all lectures and assignment deadlines are subject to change.

  Our CS109 website imitates that used by University of Washington's CSE373, Spring 2019.