Table of Contents

Combinatorics

Summer 2025
Stefan Felsner


Content of individual lectures: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ,

1. lecture, 15.04.2025

   What is Combinatorics - introductory examples
     Derangements
       Aspects of counting derangements (fixed point free permutations) P.R.de Montmort
       sequence A000166 in OEIS
       recurrence - summation
2. lecture, 17.04.2025
                    - asymptotics - generating function
     Orthogonal Latin Squares 
       (Euler's 36 officers problem)
       Orthogonal Latin squares of odd order from groups
       MOLS (mutually orthogonal Latin squares)
       There are at most n-1 MOLS of order n
       Projective planes
3. lecture, 22.04.2025
   Basic Counting
     Basic rules for counting
     Binomial coefficients
        Models and identities
        Extending binomial coefficients 
4. lecture, 24.04.2025
        Extending binomial identities to polynomial identities
        The binomial theorem
    Combinatorics of Permutations
        The type of a permutation
        Enumeration of permutations of given type
        Permutations with k cycles
5. lecture, 29.04.2025
        Stirling numbers of first kind
        Recursion and raising factorials
        Expected number of cycles 
   The twelvefold way
6. lecture, 06.05.2025
     Partitions of a set
        Stirling numbers of second kind
        Stirling inversion
     Partitions of an integer
        Generating function of partitions
        The Hardy-Ramanujan-Rademacher formula      
7. lecture, 13.05.2025
        Distinct and odd are equinumerous
   Fibonacci numbers
      Identities
      Zeckendorf's number system
8. lecture, 15.05.2025
      Binet's formula via generating function
                      via linear algebra
  Solving linear recurrences
      The general approach (partial fraction decomposition)
      The matrix approach (companion matrix and Vandermonde) 


Back to the course page.