Approximation Algorithms

Linear-time Selection

Recursion Trees

Concrete models

Tight upper/lower bounds

Amortized Analysis

Splay Trees

Hashing

Streaming Algorithms

Fingerprinting

Dynamic programming

Shortest paths

Bellman–Ford algorithm

Dinic’s algorithm

Floyd–Warshall algorithm

Network flow problem

Flows and Matchings

Edmonds–Karp algorithm

Min-cost Flows

Zero Sum Games

Linear Programming

Mechanism Design

Online Algorithms

Multiplicative Weights Algorithm

Computational Geometry

Geometric Primitives

Convex hull

Sweep line algorithm

Sweepangle

SegTrees

Closest Pair

Smallest Enclosing Circle

Byzantine Agreement

Oblivious Algorithms

Fast Fourier transform

The Algorithmic Magic of Polynomials

Graph Algorithms

15-451/651 Algorithms Carnegie Mellon University Spring 2022 This course explores the design and analysis of algorithms, algorithmic modelling techniques, and their efficiency. It aims to provide tools for designing and analyzing personal algorithms, using various analytical tools and frameworks. Some advanced topics not commonly covered in textbooks are also taught. This course is about the design and analysis of algorithms. We will study specific algorithms for a variety of problems, as well as powerful modelling techniques (e.g. graphs and linear programming) and design paradigms (e.g. amortized analysis, dynamic programming, and sweep-line). (The complete list of topics is on the "Home/Schedule" page linked above.) We will study ways to analyze the efficiency of algorithms, and give lower bounds on the complexity of a problem. The topics have been chosen for their power, beauty, and practicality. The main goal of this course is to provide the intellectual tools needed for designing and analyzing your own algorithms for new problems you need to solve in the future. By the end of this course, you should be able to:

- Use and explain algorithm design tools discussed including divide-and-conquer, balanced search trees, hashing, graphs, randomization, dynamic programming, network flows, and linear programming, as well as basic data structure and algorithm design principles.
- Use and explain analytical tools and frameworks discussed including recurrences, probabilistic Analysis, minimax optimality, amortized analysis, analysis within different concrete models, and potential functions.
- Identify and critique incorrect analyses, find counterexamples to faulty claims and "proofs" of correctness.  - Several of the topics we teach, particularly the more advanced ones, are not covered in the standard Algorithms textbooks. Hence we will provide lecture notes covering all the material in this course.
- However, we would like you to have a book to give you more detailed coverage. (Or to give you an alternative perspective if you find our own confusing!) We recommend you get one of the following:
    - Introduction to Algorithms, by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein (hereafter referred to as "CLRS"). It's big, it's fairly expensive, but it is the gold standard of algorithms books with a lot of material. Based on the Algorithms course at MIT.
   - Algorithms, by Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, and Vazirani (herafter referred to as "DPV"). Smaller, cheaper, more informal. A relatively new book based on Algorithms courses at UC Berkeley and UCSD. A preliminary (incomplete) version is available here.
Specific readings in CLRS and DPV will be listed on the course schedule. It is recommended that you skim the reading before lecture, with a more thorough read afterwards.
- Other helpful material can be found in: Algorithm Design by J. Kleinberg and E. Tardos, Data Structures and Network Algorithms by R. E. Tarjan, Randomized Algorithms by Motwani and Raghavan, Programming Pearls by J. Bentley, Introduction to Algorithms: a Creative Approach by U. Manber, and the classic Aho-Hopcroft-Ullman book. See also some excellent lecture notes by Jeff Erickson at UIUC.

15-451/651 Algorithms

Data Structures and Algorithms

Strings and encodings

Deterministic finite automaton (DFA)

Turing Machines

Church-Turing Thesis

Universality

Stable Matching

Randomness

Cryptography

Decidability

Boolean Circuits

Randomized Algorithms

Interactive Proofs

Time Complexity

NP (complexity)

Modular arithmetic

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems

Graphs

NP-completeness

Group Theory

Probability theory

Fields and Polynomials

Matchings and Bipartite Graphs

Quantum Computation

15-251 Great Ideas in Theoretical Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University Fall 2018 The course provides a rigorous introduction to the foundations of computer science, improving abstract thinking skills and preparing students to be innovators in the field. Topics include computation, computational complexity, and real-world applications of computational concepts. Prerequisites imply this is an intermediate-level course.  Broadly speaking, the course has several goals. First, it provides a rigorous/formal introduction to the foundations of computer science, which is the science that studies computation in all its generality. An important component of this is improving your analytic and abstract thinking skills since nature's language is mathematics. Second, the course intends to prepare you to be innovators in computer science by presenting some of the great ideas that people in the past have contributed to science and humanity. We hope that you will learn from their examples. Third, the course gives you opportunities to improve your social skills by emphasizing cooperation, clarity of thought, and clarity in the expression of thought.

More specifically, some of the main learning objectives are the following.

- Define mathematically the notions of computation, computational problem, and algorithm.
- Express, analyze and compare the computability and computational complexity of problems.
- Use mathematical tools from set theory, combinatorics, graph theory, probability theory, and number theory in the study of computability, computational complexity, and some of the real-world applications of computational concepts.
- State and explain the important and well-known open problems in the theory of computation.
- Write clearly presented proofs that meet rigorous standards of correctness and conventional guidelines on style.
- Identify and critique proofs that are logically flawed and/or do not meet the expected standards of clarity.
- Cooperate with other people in order to solve challenging and rigorous problems related to the study of computer science.

Note that even though all of the topics we discuss in the course have real-world applications, often we will not be explicitly discussing the applications. This is because initially it is better to separate concerns regarding real-world applications from the exploration of fundamental truths and knowledge that shape how we view and understand the world. The quest for truth and understanding, wherever it takes us, eventually do produce applications, some that we hoped to achieve, and some that were beyond our wildest dreams. The focus of the course is on that quest for truth and understanding, which is arguably more important than specific applications. The formal prerequisites for the course are (15-122 or 15-150) and (21-127 or 21-128 or 15-151). In particular, we expect the students to have taken an introductory computer science course that goes beyond basic computer programming and covers algorithmic thinking. On the mathematics side, we expect the students to have experience reasoning abstractly and know how to write formal proofs. 

15-251 Great Ideas in Theoretical Computer Science

Theoretical Computer Science