18.440 | Spring 2014 | Undergraduate

Probability and Random Variables

Course Description

This course introduces students to probability and random variables. Topics include distribution functions, binomial, geometric, hypergeometric, and Poisson distributions. The other topics covered are uniform, exponential, normal, gamma and beta distributions; conditional probability; Bayes theorem; joint …
This course introduces students to probability and random variables. Topics include distribution functions, binomial, geometric, hypergeometric, and Poisson distributions. The other topics covered are uniform, exponential, normal, gamma and beta distributions; conditional probability; Bayes theorem; joint distributions; Chebyshev inequality; law of large numbers; and central limit theorem.
Learning Resource Types
Problem Sets
Exams with Solutions
Lecture Notes
Online Textbook
Instructor Insights
Partial Pascal's triangle showing numbers on diagonals.
Pascal’s triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients. (Public domain via wikimedia commons.)