Welcome to Math 342!

Greetings. I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself. Click here for my welcome letter introducing myself, my family and my research interests.

The purpose of this course is to learn not just probability, but mathetmatical modeling and how to pose and answer good questions. In the process we will work on many skills useful for industry, graduate school, and beyond. Click here for a more detailed explanation of my objectives for the course.

Probability is one of the most popular branches of mathematics. One of the reasons I love it so is that it can be used to attack a variety of problems in numerous fields, ranging from understanding the prime numbers to trying to beat the house in Vegas. As you can tell from the webpage, there is a lot of material for this course, both new material we will cover and old material you are expected to know.

If you have any concerns or suggestions for the course and would prefer to communicate them anonymously, you may email me by using the account mathephs@gmail.com  (the password is the first seven Fibonacci numbers, 11235813).

Looking forward to seeing you all.   //Steve

PS: My wife teaches marketing at UMass Amherst. Sometimes my kids help me out as extra TAs; Cam will be 4 1/2 and Kayla 2 1/2.