CO 430/630 -- Algebraic enumeration, Winter 2025

Information

This course is about algebraic tools for enumeration, as the title suggests, so a big part of that is generating series, now finally with more rigour and with various variants in all their glory. Other important topics include posets and möbius inversion; sign reversing involutions; transfer matrices. There are some classic examples that we'll do as we go along that you as a combinatorialist should know. We will also talk a little about combinatorial species, though this isn't primarily a species course the way I will teach it. In the reverse direction, I will probably tuck some Hopf algebras in, which you should not expect from another instructor.

Instructor: Ren Yeats (either Karen or Ren is fine at this point). Pronouns they/them or he/him. Generally, please, masculine terms when ungendered ones are not readily available.
Office:MC 5126
Email: kayeats at uwaterloo.ca
Office Hours: TBA
Lectures: Mondays and Wednesdays 10:00-11:30, MC 5417
Syllabus TBA.

Announcements

• On the first day we will vote on details of the course, like what the exams will look like, when my office hours will be, and do we want an online discussion forum, so please come and contribute your view and your vote.

Assignments

Assignments will be roughly biweekly and due on Wednesdays.

Class Summaries

These summaries are not meant to replace your own notes, but give an overview and useful references.

Part 0: Introduction

Part 1: