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Home Courses Mathematics Probability and Random Variables Readings

Readings are assigned from the required text. Ross, Sheldon. A First Course in Probability. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. ISBN: 9780136033134. Additional readings are available in the links listed below.
SES # TOPICS READINGS Sec. 1.1-1.3 (also Pascal's triangle as studied (not invented) by Pascal, see also correspondence with Fermat) Sec. 1.4-1.5 Sec. 2.1-2.2 Sec. 2.3-2.4 (see Paulos' NYT article and a famous hat problem) Sec. 2.5-2.7 (and a bit more history) Sec. 3.1-3.2 Sec. 3.3-3.5 Sec. 4.1-4.2 Sec. 4.3-4.4 (and, for non-discrete setting, examples of non-measurable sets, as in the Vitali construction) Sec. 4.5

Permutations and combinations

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Multinomial coefficients and more counting Sample spaces and set theory Axioms of probability Probability and equal likelihood Conditional probabilities Bayes' formula and independent events Discrete random variables Expectations of discrete random variables Variance Binomial random variables, repeated trials and the so-called Modern Portfolio Theory Poisson random variables Poisson processes More discrete random variables Continuous random variables Review for Midterm Exam 1 Midterm Exam 1 Uniform random variables Normal random variables Exponential random variables More continuous random variables Joint distribution functions Sums of independent random variables Expectation of sums Covariance Conditional expectation

11

Sec. 4.6 (and the so-called Modern Portfolio Theory)

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Sec. 4.7 Sec. 9.1 Sec. 4.8-4.9 Sec. 5.1-5.2 [No Readings] [No Readings] Sec. 5.3 Sec. 5.4 Sec. 5.5 Sec. 5.6-5.7 Sec. 6.1-6.2 Sec. 6.3-6.5 Sec. 7.1-7.2 Sec. 7.3-7.4 Sec. 7.5-7.6

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Readings | Probability and Random Variables | Mathematics | MIT Ope...

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-440-probability-and-random-...

SES # 27 28 29 30 31

TOPICS Moment generating distributions Review for Midterm Exam 2 Midterm Exam 2 Weak law of large numbers Central limit theorem Strong law of large numbers and Jensen's inequality Markov chains Entropy Martingales and the Optional Stopping Time Theorem Risk Neutral Probability and Black-Scholes Review for Final Exam Review for Final Exam Review for Final Exam Review for Final Exam

READINGS Sec. 7.7-7.8 [No Readings] [No Readings] Sec. 8.1-8.2 Sec. 8.3 Sec. 8.4-8.5 (see also the truncation-based proof on Terry Tao's blog and the characteristic function proof of the weak law) and Jensen's inequality Sec. 9.2 Sec. 9.3-9.4 Martingales and the Optional Stopping Time Theorem (see also prediction market plots) Black-Scholes (look up options quotes at the Chicago Board Options Exchange) [No Readings] [No Readings] [No Readings] [No Readings]

32

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