====== Topics on the probabilistic method - Spring Semester 2007 ======
\\
organizer   Nicolas Macris\\
office      INR 134 \\
phone       38114\\
email       nicolas.macris@epfl.ch\\
\\
meetings: mondays 12h15 - 13h15 in room INR 113\\
===== topic =====
\\
This semester we will study the "probabilistic method" through a selection of special topics and examples from the two books:\\
\\
"Ten Lectures on the Probabilistic Method", by Joel Spencer\\
"The Probabilistic Method", by Noga Alon and Joel Spencer\\
\\
The method can be briefly described as follows: to prove the existence of certain combinatorial structures one constructs an appropriate probability space and shows that a randomly chosen element has the desired property with positive probability. This kind of ideas, initialy introduced by Erdos, have become a powerful tool in combinatorics, discrete mathematics, computer science. \\
\\
We will meet on a weekly basis for presentations of 1h between 12h15 and 13h15, starting on monday march 19. Participants are encouraged to bring their lunch.\\



===== evolving schedule =====
\\
^ **speaker** ^ ^ **date** ^ ^ **topic** ^
|   |  |   |  |   | 
| Shrinivas Kudekar |   | March 19 |   |//Ramsey numbers// |
| Amin Karbasi |   | March 26 |   |//Lovasz local lemma//  |
| Jeremie Ezri |   | April 2 |   |//Janson inequalities//  |
| --- |   | April 9 |   |//easter holiday//  |
| Jeremie Ezri |   | April 16 |   |//applications of Janson inequalities//  |
| Iryna Andriyanova |   | April 23 |   |//concentration, martingales//  |
| Satish Korada |   | April 30 |   |//Talagrand inequality//  |
| Satish Korada |   | May 7 |   |//Talagrand continued//  |
| Mahdi Cheraghchi |   | May 14 |   |//evolution of random graphs//  |
| Mahdi Cheraghchi |   | May 21 |   |//evolution of random graphs cont// |
| --- |   | May 28 |   |//holiday// |
| Shrinivas Kudekar |   | June 4 |   |//zero-one laws// |
| --- |   | June 11 |   |//---// |


\\

//[[https://ipg/doku.php?id=en:events:reading_group|back to reading groups]]//