Probability
Math 336
Brad Hartlaub
Fall 2026
Math Science Skills Center
- Peter Dunson will be your lead tutor. He will be available to help you on Sunday from 7:00 pm until 8:00 pm and Thursday from 7:00 until 9:00 in Hayes 109.
Daily Agendas
- August 28
- August 31
- September 2
- September 4 - our first problem session
- September 7
- September 9
- September 11 - problem session on Chapter 2 exercises
- September 14
- September 16
- September 18 - problem session on Chapter 3 exercises
- September 21
- September 23
- September 25 - problem session on Chapter 4 exercises
- September 28
- September 30
- October 2 - problem session on Chapter 5 exercises
- October 5 - class time for group projects
- October 7 - Exam #1 covering Chapters 1 - 5 (You may use three 8.5" x 11" sheets of notes and an R script or RMardown file during the exam.)
- October 12 - class time for group projects
- October 14 - Discrete Random Variable Presentations
- Alejandro Gonzalez and Yaw Oppong-Krampah - The Geometric Distribution: Trials and Failures, Two ways to count the wait
- Khanh Mai and Nam Vu - Benford's Law: The probability of a first digit
- October 16 - Discrete Random Variable Presentations
- Maya Ferguson and Godwin Idowu - The Birthday Problem (Extended)
- An Dang and Henry Nguyen - The Multinomial Distribution: Theory and an application to HIV mutation data
- October 19 - Discrete Random Variable Presentations
- Zachary McGowen and Ibraheem Nadeem - Tthe Skellam Distribution: The difference between two independent Poisson counts
- Davelle Ampofo-Twumasi and Ziv Dueber - How far does a rumor spread? The Borel distribution processes
- October 21 - Discrete Random Variable Presentations
- Nolan Dirks and Jackson Belyn - Another look at the binomial distribution
- Vicky Miguez and Mateo Cachimuel - Another look at the Poisson distribution
- October 23 - Discrete Random Variable Presentations
- Aishik Biswas and Altan Li - The Negative Binomial Distribution and applications in insurance and credit analysis
- Nick Chen and Viktor Liu - Another look at the hypergeometric disteribution
- October 26
- October 28
- October 30 - PS on Chapter 6 exercises
- November 2
- November 4
- November 6 - PS on Chapter 7 exercises
Homework Assignments
Your solutions must be submitted electronically to your Google Drive folder. You must submit a PDF of your solutions. For example, the name of the file for the first homework assignment should be HW1-Math336-yourname.PDF.
- HW #1 - PS on Friday, Sept. 4, written solutions are due on Friday, Sept. 4
- HW #2 - PS on Friday, Sept. 11, written solutions are due on Friday, Sept. 11
- HW #3 - PS on Friday, Sept. 18, written solutions are due on Friday, Sept. 18
- HW #4 - PS on Friday, Sept. 25, written solutions are due on Friday, Sept. 25
- HW #5 - PS on Friday, Oct. 2, written solutions are due on Friday, Oct. 2
- Project 1 - Properties and applications of discrete random variables of interest to you. Please send a short email message to me by Monday, October 12 at noon with the distribution(s) you will cover, the name of your partner, and your preferred presentation date (on or before October 23). Your presentation (PPT or PDF) should include appropriate applications of the distribution(s) and last approximately 18 to 20 minutes. You should include the probability generating function or the moment generating function and perhaps use the generating function to generate probabilities or moments. You should also use RStudio or other software to illustrate appropriate probability calculations and conduct a simulation for at least one of your discrete distributions. Before your presentation you should create a folder on Google Drive and drop your files into the folder so that your peers can make use of your files. On the day of your presentation you should provide a one page handout that summarizes your presentation/distribution(s) for your peers. You may also want to challenge your peers to apply the distributons you have introduced or dicussed to some other interesting prolems. After your presentation, there will be approximately 5 minutes for questions from your peers. Your peers will also provide a review of your group project.
- HW #6 - PS on Friday, Oct. 30, written solutions are due on Friday, Oct. 30
- HW #7 - PS on Friday, Nov. 6, written solutions are due on Friday, Nov. 6
Exam Samples
- See our Google Drive folder !SampleExams
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