COP 4531: Lecture 4

Learning objectives

After this class, you should be able to:

1. Given a recurrence, solve it using the method of substitution, and prove the correctness of your solution using induction.

Reading assignment

1. CLR: Chapter 4, up to (and including) section 4.1.
2. CLR: None.

Exercises and review questions

• Questions on current lecture's material
  1. Exercise 4.1-1.
  2. Exercise 4.1-3.
  3. Exercise 4.1-5.
  4. (Post your solution on the discussion board) In the paragraph just before the sub-section "Making a good guess", the text uses two cases, for n = 2 and n = 3, to deal with the base case. Why is it not sufficient to prove the result for n = 2? Give other possible sets of base cases (excluding n = 1, n = 2, and n = 3).

• Questions on next lecture's material
  1. None.