Introduction

This is a set of four lectures aimed for the Diploma in Computer Science and the Computer Science Tripos (Part 2 General) classes. It leads in to the ``Data Structures and Algorithms'' course that is timetabled immediately after it. The DS&A course is also attended by CST 1 B students, who had a couple of courses on programming last year as well as one on Discrete Mathematics. The programming side of things is covered to a large extent by the fact that the Diploma class gets taught Java early in the term, thus this course provides survival training with regard to the mathematics that the DS&A course needs to rely on. Those Diploma students who have just completed a first degree in mathematics (elsewhere or here, and possibly including Part 3) might reasonably collect a copy of these notes, observe the topics covered and not worry about attending these four lectures¹.

Later in the year there is a course that has ``Discrete Mathematics'' as its title. There may be a small amount of overlap between this course and that one, but I do not mind! Firstly because some things can usefully be said twice and make more sense the second time, and secondly because the coverage I give here will be somewhat compressed and will relate only the the DS&A course, while Discrete Mathematics has other applications in Computer Science.

This set of four lectures is not directly examined. Some of the concepts introduced may, however, help in answers to DS&A questions, and it may give a preview of Discrete Maths and hence make that easier to cope with.