Basic Information

• Instructor: Ruth Urner ([email protected])

• Emails: start your subject line with [eecs2001].

• Office Hours: TBA.

• Website: All course related information is available on eClass.

• Q&A: There is a discussion forum set up on eClass; please use

this for questions that might also be relevant to other students;
please help out and also answer questions; I will monitor the forum,
but there is no grade attached, so don’t hesitate to participate!
Evaluation (to be confirmed on eClass)

4 Assignments (30%)
• Spaced throughout the term
• Dates are announced on eClass (might shift if needed, but the
posted dates help when to expect the assignments)
In-person Midterm exam (30%)
• Expect in the week after reading week
• Date to be announced once we have a time and room
In-person Final exam (40%)
• Date to be scheduled by the university
• Examination period: December 5-20
How to define sets

Here are some tools for defining sets:

1. Make a list of the elements
▶ Set of all students in this class
▶ Set of odd natural numbers smaller than 10: {1, 3, 5, 7, 9}
Problem: this technique fails for large or infinite sets
2. Identify by a common characteristic
▶ Odd natural numbers {n ∈ N | n is not divisible by 2}
Problem: sometimes we don’t know a precise defining characteristic
3. Inductive definition
▶ We can define the natural numbers inductively by stating that
1 ∈ N, and that n ∈ N implies n + 1 ∈ N.
Sets, multi-sets, sequences

• Recall: Sets contain each element only once and the order
does not matter.

• Multi-sets can contain elements multiple times, but do not

contain an order of their elements.

• Sequences or tuples are collections of elements in a fixed order.

Functions – important properties
We use the notation
f :A→B
to state that f is a function from A to B.

We call A the domain of the function f and B the range of the

function f .

Functions can be:

• one-to-one:
We call a function f : A → B one-to-one if f (a) = b and f (a′ ) = b for
some b ∈ B implies that a = a′ .
• onto:
We call a function f : A → B onto if for all b ∈ B there exists an a ∈ A
with f (a) = b.
Graphs

We illustrate graphs as points and connecting lines:

4

1
2

An undirected graph (or simply a graph) G = (V , E ) is defined as a pair of

• a set V of vertices (also called nodes)
• and a set E of edges,
where each edge in E is a (multi-set) subset of V of size 2.
Graphs

Graphs can be used to illustrate relations between objects.

Some definitions and terminology for graphs

5
Let G = (V , E ) be a graph. We define:
1
2
• a vertex v ∈ V is adjacent to edge
e ∈ E if v ∈ e 3

• the degree d(v ) of a vertex v ∈ V is the

number of edges v is adjacent to

• a path in a graph is a sequence

p = (v1 , v2 , . . . , vn ) of vertices such that
{vi , vi+1 } ∈ E for all i ∈ {1, 2, . . . , n}
Some definitions and terminology for graphs

5
Let G = (V , E ) be a graph. We define:
1
2
• a vertex v ∈ V is adjacent to edge
e ∈ E if v ∈ e 3

• the degree d(v ) of a vertex v ∈ V is the

number of edges v is adjacent to

• a path in a graph is a sequence

p = (v1 , v2 , . . . , vn ) of vertices such that
{vi , vi+1 } ∈ E for all i ∈ {1, 2, . . . , n}

• a simple path is a path in which no vertex

occurs more than once
Some definitions and terminology for graphs
4

Let G = (V , E ) be a graph. We 1
2
define:
3

• a subgraph G′of graph G is a a graph

G = (V , E ) with V ′ ⊆ V and E ′ ⊆ E
′ ′ ′
Some definitions and terminology for graphs
4

Let G = (V , E ) be a graph. We 1
2
define:
3

• a subgraph G′
of graph G is a a graph
G = (V , E ) with V ′ ⊆ V and E ′ ⊆ E
′ ′ ′

• graph G is connected, if for every two

distinct vertices v , v ′ ∈ V , there is a path
from v to v ′ (that is, a path which has v
as it’s first and v ′ as its last vertex)
Some definitions and terminology for graphs

Let G = (V , E ) be a graph. We 1
2
define:
3

• a cycle in a graph is a path for which the the first

and last vertex are identical
• a simple cycle in a graph is a cycle that contains
at least three different vertices and doesn’t
contain any vertex more than once (except for the
first and last)
Some definitions and terminology for graphs

Let G = (V , E ) be a graph. We 1
2
define:
3

• a cycle in a graph is a path for which the the first

and last vertex are identical
• a simple cycle in a graph is a cycle that contains
at least three different vertices and doesn’t
contain any vertex more than once (except for the
first and last)
• a tree is a graph that is connected and doesn’t
contain any simple cycles; vertices of degree one
in a tree are called leaves; sometimes we declare
one vertex in a tree to be special and call it a
root
Directed graphs

We illustrate directed graphs as points and connecting arrows:

4

1
2

A directed graph G = (V , E ) is formally defined as a pair of

• a set V of vertices
• and a set E of edges,
where each edge in E is a 2-tuple (or pair) of members of V .
Some definitions and terminology for directed graphs

• For an edge e = (v1 , v2 ) in a directed graph, we call e an

incoming edge to v2 and an outgoing edge for v1 .

• The in-degree din (v ) for a vertex v in a directed graph is the

number of its incoming edges. The out-degree dout (v ) is the
number of outgoing edges from v .

• A directed path in a directed graph is a sequence

p = (v1 , v2 , . . . , vn ) of vertices such that (vi , vi+1 ) ∈ E for all
i ∈ {1, 2, . . . , n}.

• A directed graph is strongly connected if every two distinct

vertices v and v ′ in V are connected by a directed path.
Alphabet, words, languages

An alphabet is a non-empty, finite set of symbols.

Examples:
• Σ = {0, 1}.
• Γ = {a, b, c, d, e, f , g , h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r , s, t, u, v , w , x, y , z}

A string or word over some alphabet Σ is a finite sequence of

symbols from Σ.
Examples:
• ruth
• 00101
Alphabet, words, languages

An alphabet is a non-empty, finite set of symbols.

Examples:
• Σ = {0, 1}.
• Γ = {a, b, c, d, e, f , g , h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r , s, t, u, v , w , x, y , z}

A string or word over some alphabet Σ is a finite sequence of

symbols from Σ.
Examples:
• ruth
• 00101

A language is a set of words (set of strings).

Some definitions and terminology for strings and languages

• the length of a string w is the number of symbols in w

• the empty string ϵ is a string of length 0 (that is, without any

symbols)

• the reverse wR of a string w is the number of symbols in w

• the concatenation of strings w = s1 s2 . . . sn and z = t1 t2 . . . tm

is the string wz = s1 s2 . . . sn t1 t2 . . . tm
Some definitions and terminology for strings and languages

• a substring z of string w is a consecutive subsequence of

symbols from w

• a prefix x of string w is a substring that starts at the first

position in w; that is, x is a prefix of w if there exists a string
z such that w = xz

• x is a proper prefix of w if x is a prefix of w and w ̸= x

Some definitions and terminology for strings and languages

• a substring z of string w is a consecutive subsequence of

symbols from w

• a prefix x of string w is a substring that starts at the first

position in w; that is, x is a prefix of w if there exists a string
z such that w = xz

• x is a proper prefix of w if x is a prefix of w and w ̸= x

• a prefix-free language over some alphabet Σ is a language

where no word in the language is a proper prefix of some
other word
Ordering words

Given an ordering of the symbols in some alphabet Σ, we can

define orderings of the set of words over Σ:
• Lexicographic order
Ordering words

Given an ordering of the symbols in some alphabet Σ, we can

define orderings of the set of words over Σ:
• Lexicographic order
Definition: We have w ≤lex z in lexicographic order for strings w = s1 s2 . . . sn
and z = t1 t2 . . . tm if w is a proper prefix of z or if there exists an index
j < min{n, m} such that si = ti for all i ∈ {1, 2, . . . j} and sj+1 < tj+1 .

• Short-lex order (or string order)

Definition: We have w ≤str z in string order for strings w = s1 s2 . . . sn and
z = t1 t2 . . . tm if w is shorter than z or if w and z have the same length and
w ≤lex z in lexicographic order.