Foundations I: Discrete Structures
##Spring 2026
Class Information
| Item | Section 0180 |
|---|---|
| Schedule | Monday/Wednesday 1:30 - 2:50 PM |
| Location | Zoom. Details on Carmen. |
| Professor | Greg Ryslik / ryslik DOT 1 AT osu DOT edu |
| Professor Office Hours | Fridays (2:20 - 3:40 PM) - via zoom. Contact me ahead of time if you plan to attend. |
| TA | TBD |
| TA Office Hours | TBD Per request. Please reach out over slack/ email. |
| Slack Discussion Group | See the link in Carmen! Say hello! |
All classes will be recorded and posted for you to review online afterwards if you want to listen again.
Some classes may need to be rescheduled earlier or later due to professor’s travel. They will of course be recorded as well if you can’t attend that class.
Please enable your camera if at all able. I understand it’s not always possible but it’s very helpful to the me!
Description:
By the end of this course, students should be comfortable using propositional logic, first-order predicate logic, be familiar with basic mathematical proofs such as proof by contradiction and strong and ordinary mathematical induction, be familiar with using asymptotic notation, be able to analyze running time of simple iterative or recursive algorithms, and finally be familiar with basic definitions and algorithms in graph theory.
Grading Plan:
- Midterm 1: 20%
- Midterm 2: 20%
- Final: 35%
- HW: 20%
- Participation/Retrospectives: 5%
There might be tentative bonus points assigned for harder math or cs problems. Max would be at most 3%. At the discretion of the professor :-).
Retrospectives
At the end of each week, I ask you to submit a very short writeup about how the week went. Essentially:
1) What went well
2) What can be improved/did not go so well
3) What did you like learning.
A few sentences is fine here – I just want to keep an eye on how the course is progressing throughout the semester.
Grading Scheme
Grades will follow the standard scale:
A : 93 <= grade <= 100
A-: 90 <= grade < 93
B+: 87 <= grade < 90
B : 83 <= grade < 87
B-: 80 <= grade < 83
C+: 77 <= grade < 80
C : 73 <= grade < 77
C-: 70 <= grade < 73
D+: 67 <= grade < 70
D : 60 <= grade < 67
E : <60
Textbooks:
You might find the following books useful but I won’t assign homework from them.
- Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, Eighth Edition, By Kenneth Rosen.
- Introduction to Algorithms, Third Edition, by Corman, Leiserson, Rivest and Stein.
Class course
| Class | Wk | Date | Day | Topic | Assign Out | Assign Due | Notes | Video | Related Files & Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1/12/26 | Mon | Logic & Proofs |
1. Logic 1 2. Logic 2 3. Proof Methods | Lecture 1/12/26 | |||
| 2 | 2 | 1/14/26 | Wed | Logic & Proofs | HW1 | Lecture 1/14/26 | |||
| 3 | 2 | 1/19/26 | Mon | No Class | |||||
| 4 | 3 | 1/21/26 | Wed | Logic & Proofs | Lecture 1/21/26 | ||||
| 5 | 3 | 1/26/26 | Mon | Logic & Proofs | HW2 | HW1 | Lecture 1/26/26 | ||
| 6 | 4 | 1/28/26 | Wed | Set Theory | Lecture 1/28/26 | ||||
| 7 | 4 | 2/2/26 | Mon | Set Theory | HW3 | HW2 | Lecture 02/02/26 | ||
| 8 | 5 | 2/4/26 | Wed | Set Theory |
1. Set Theory 1 2. Set Theory 2 | Lecture 02/04/26 | |||
| 9 | 5 | 2/9/26 | Mon | Set Theory/Review | HW4 | HW3 | Midterm 1 Topics | Review | |
| 10 | 6 | 2/11/26 | Wed | Exam1 | |||||
| 11 | 6 | 2/16/26 | Mon -> Tues | Algorithms | HW4 | 02/16/26 | |||
| 12 | 7 | 2/18/26 | Wed | Algorithms |
1. Algorithms 2. Asymptotic Behavior | 02/18/26 | |||
| 13 | 7 | 2/23/26 | Mon | Algorithms | HW5 | 02/23/26 | |||
| 14 | 8 | 2/25/26 | Wed | Algorithms/Induction | 1. Induction | 02/25/26 | |||
| 15 | 8 | 3/2/26 | Mon | Induction | HW6 | HW5 | 03/02/26 | ||
| 16 | 9 | 3/4/26 | Wed | Induction | 03/04/26 | ||||
| 17 | 9 | 3/9/26 | Mon | Recursion | HW7 | HW6 | 1. Recursion | 03/09/26 | Master Theorem Notes |
| 18 | 10 | 3/11/26 | Wed | Recursion | 03/11/26 | ||||
| 19 | 10 | 3/16/26 | Mon | No Class | |||||
| 20 | 11 | 3/18/26 | Wed | No Class | |||||
| 21 | 11 | 3/23/26 | Mon | Review | HW7 | Midterm 2 Topics | 03/23/26 - Review | ||
| 22 | 12 | 3/25/26 | Wed | Exam 2 | HW8 | ||||
| 23 | 12 | 3/30/26 | Mon | Graph Theory | 03/30/26 | ||||
| 24 | 13 | 4/1/26 | Wed | Graph Theory | HW8 | 04/01/26 | |||
| 25 | 13 | 4/6/26 | Mon | Graph Theory | 1. Graph Algorithms | 04/06/26 | Eulerian Paths | ||
| 26 | 14 | 4/8/26 | Wed | Graph Theory | HW9 | 04/08/26 | |||
| 27 | 14 | 4/13/26 | Mon | Misc Topic | HW9 | Final Topics | Entropy.pdf | ||
| 28 | 15 | 4/15/26 | Wed | Review | HW10 | ||||
| 29 | 15 | 4/20/26 | Mon | No Class | |||||
| 30 | 16 | 4/22/26 | Wed | Final | HW 10 | ||||
| 31 | 16 | 4/27/26 | Mon | Industry & Misc |