Mailing Lists @ mit.edu
People Involved

Ron Rivest, Lecturer
rivest at mit.edu
Phone: 253-5880
Office: 32-G692
Office hours by appointment


Sivan Toledo, Lecturer
stoledo at mit.edu
Phone: 253-7328
Office: 32-G918
Office hours by appointment


Jason Juang, Teaching Assistant
juang at mit.edu
Office Hours: Monday 4:30-6, 32-G5 lounge


Jayant Krishnamurthy, Teaching Assistant
jayant at mit.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 3-4:30, 32-G5 lounge


Matthew Ng, Teaching Assistant
mng_520 at mit.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 5-6:30, W20 Athena cluster


Tina Wright, Teaching Assistant
wrightc at mit.edu
Office Hours: Monday 3-5, 32-G5 lounge


6.006: Introduction to Algorithms

Announcements

Final exams
If you would like to see your final exam, please see Be Blackburn in 32-G675A, right outside Prof. Rivest's office. The exams will be available through the end of IAP. You may take a copy of your exam, but we must keep the original.
12/19/2008

Numerics for the final exam
We've been asked by several students for sample numerics problems, or for some idea of what will be covered on the quiz. This was mentioned in some recitations, but we wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page, so we've posted a list of topics here (and also e-mailed it to the 6.006-students list).
12/13/2008

Final exam
The final exam for 6.006 will be held on Monday, December 15 in Johnson, from 1:30pm-4:30pm It will cover all material from this semester. The emphasis of the quiz will be on material covered since Quiz 2, i.e. dynamic programming and numerics. However, all material is fair game.

The test will be closed-book and closed-note, except that you may use THREE letter-sized sheets of notes (8.5x11" or A4, both sides). As usual, Wednesday's recitation will be a review session. We will also hold a review session on Thursday evening from 7-9pm, in 4-370.

Practice material, including a (very brief) review packet, has been posted to the quizzes page.

12/08/2008

No class on Wednesday, November 26
Just a reminder that this Wednesday's recitations are canceled. Happy Thanksgiving!
11/25/2008

Problem Set 6 posted
Problem Set 6, the final problem set of the semester, has been posted on the problem sets page. Part A is due Tuesday, Dec. 2nd at 11:59PM, and Part B is due Thursday, Dec. 4th at 11:59PM.
11/19/2008

Quiz 2 Solutions
Solutions and statistics are posted to the quizzes page.
11/16/2008

Quiz announcements
If you have a conflict with the normal quiz time on Wednesday, we will be giving the make-up quiz on Thursday from 7:30pm to 9:30pm, in room 26-310. If you can't make either time, please contact us to make alternate arrangements.

Practice material has been posted to the quizzes page. A brief review packet will follow later today.

11/07/2008

Quiz 2
The second 6.006 quiz will be held on Wednesday, November 12 in Room 1-190, from 7:30pm-9:30pm It will cover material up through Thursday's lecture introducing dynamic programming. The emphasis of the quiz will be on material covered since Quiz 1, i.e. graphs, searching, and shortest paths. However, all material is fair game—in particular topics covered towards the end of the sorting module.

The test will be closed-book and closed-note, except that you may use TWO letter-sized sheets of notes (8.5x11" or A4, both sides). As with the last quiz, Friday's recitation will be a review session, and recitiations on the day of the quiz are cancelled, in favor of extended office hours.

11/02/2008

Problem Set 4 edited
Modifications have been made to problem set 4 to fix the color labels in rubik.py. Also, some minor wording changes have been made to the PDF file. Download the latest version on the problem sets page.
10/25/2008

Problem Set 4 posted
Problem Set 4 has been posted on the problem sets page. Part A is due Tuesday, Nov 4th at 11:59PM, and Part B is due Thursday, Nov 6th at 11:59PM.
10/21/2008

Quiz 1 Solutions
Solutions and statistics are posted to the quizzes page.
10/20/2008

Quizzes graded
Solutions will be posted shortly. Your grade should be posted on the submission website. We'll be returning quizzes Friday in recitation. (We recommend that you check and make sure your grade was entered accurately. Alert the TAs if there are any discrepancies.)
10/17/2008

Quiz tonight
Quiz 1 is tonight at 7:30pm in 1-190. The TAs are holding office hours in the G5 lounge until 7pm. (If you've never been there, take the elevators behind the Forbes cafe.) Good luck!
10/15/2008

Lecture notes
We've had a few students mention that they've been having trouble opening the lecture note PDF files posted to the course website. We're still trying to find out what's causing that--we're mostly unable to reproduce the problem ourselves. For now, we've posted PNG copies of every page of the lecture notes, available here.
10/10/2008

Quiz 1
The first 6.006 quiz will be held on Wednesday, October 15 in Room 1-190. It will cover material up through next Friday's class, which means all material up through sorting.

The test will be closed-book and closed-note, except that you may use ONE letter-sized sheet of notes (8.5x11" or A4, both sides). We will organize and announce review session(s) closer to the date of the test.

10/02/2008

Quiz conflicts
We announced this in class last week, but here it is again: if you have a quiz conflict and you haven't done so already, please e-mail the staff with your reason and all possible times on Thursday when you can take the quiz (between 8am and 10pm).
09/29/2008

Problem Set 1 solutions posted
Problem Set 1 solutions have been posted on the problem sets page. Grades should also be posted on the submission website—log in and click "Grades" at the top. (PS1 stats: Max 70, Mean 63.0, Median 65)
09/29/2008

Problem Set 2 Posted
Problem Set 2 has been posted on the problem sets page. Part A is due Tuesday, October 7th at 11:59PM, and Part B is due Thursday, October 9th at 11:59PM.
09/23/2008

Please update your recitation section
Please go to the assignment submission website, click on the "Profile" link at the top, and tell us which recitation section you are attending, using the drop-down box on that page. This will help us to know which students are attending which sections, so that we can hand back assignments more efficiently.

If you are attending a different class on Wednesdays and Fridays, please enter your Wednesday section, as that's when we'll be handing back assignments.

09/12/2008

Problem Set 1 Posted
Problem Set 1 has been posted on the problem sets page. Part A is due Tuesday, September 23rd at 11:59PM, and Part B is due Thursday, September 25th at 11:59PM. We recommend that you use LaTeX to type up your solutions. We've provided a solution template on the problem sets page to help you get started.

We will post instructions for submitting the problem set closer to the due date.

09/09/2008

Recitation assignments e-mailed
If you signed up on the course website by midnight, you should have received a recitation assignment by e-mail. Please attend your assigned recitation on Friday; if you have a conflict, attend any recitation you can.

If you did not receive an assignment, please attend any recitation that fits your schedule, and let the TAs know which recitation you are attending. (We may ask you next week to switch sections to balance the sizes.)

09/05/2008

Recitation assignments
Please create an account on the assignment submission website and fill out the student information sheet by the end of Thursday. We will use this information to assign recitations. You must complete this form to receive a recitation assignment.
09/04/2008

Course wiki
Notes on the document distance problem covered in class today are posted to the course wiki. We will be using the wiki to post problem sets, as well as lecture and recitation notes.
09/04/2008

No recitation Wednesday, September 3
The first class will be lecture on Thursday, September 4. There is no recitation this Wednesday; recitation sections will be assigned on Thursday evening.
09/02/2008

Textbooks; Recitations
The required textbook for 6.006 is Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein. Recitation assignments will be e-mailed out Thursday afternoon (Sep 4) after the first lecture. Please ignore recitation assignments given out by the registrar.
08/29/2008