8669 Combinatorial Theory 2012

11:15AM-12:05PM MWF, Vincent Hall 1

The course will cover the following:

- partially ordered sets

suggested book: R. Stanley, Enumerative Combinatorics, Vol.1

- basic representation theory of finite groups

suggested books: M. Artin, Algebra and B. Steinberg, Representation Theory of Finite Groups

- symmetric functions

suggested books: R. Stanley, Enumerative Combinatorics, Vol.2 and I. Macdonald, Symmetric Functions and Hall Polynomials

- construction of symmetric group representations

suggested book: B. Sagan, The Symmetric Group

The two volumes of Stanley are the most essential.

If time permits, more topics will be covered.

Grading is done based on problems submitted from a single list of homework problems. The due date is April 25th in class, but submissions are welcome during the semester. The list of problems will be updated continuously.

The number of points for a problem is max(1, 5 - # people who solved it).