CS 246 – Review of Proof Techniques and Probability 01/17/20

Note: This document has been adapted from a similar review session for CS224W (Autumn
2018). It was originally compiled by Jessica Su, with minor edits by Jayadev Bhaskaran and
Albert Zheng.

1 Proof techniques
Here we will learn to prove universal mathematical statements, like “the square of any odd
number is odd”. It’s easy enough to show that this is true in specific cases – for example,
32 = 9, which is an odd number, and 52 = 25, which is another odd number. However, to
prove the statement, we must show that it works for all odd numbers, which is hard because
you can’t try every single one of them.
Note that if we want to disprove a universal statement, we only need to find one counterex-
ample. For instance, if we want to disprove the statement “the square of any odd number is
even”, it suffices to provide a specific example of an odd number whose square is not even.
(For instance, 32 = 9, which is not an even number.)
Rule of thumb:
• To prove a universal statement, you must show it works in all cases.
• To disprove a universal statement, it suffices to find one counterexample.
(For “existence” statements, this is reversed. For example, if your statement is “there exists
at least one odd number whose square is odd, then proving the statement just requires saying
32 = 9, while disproving the statement would require showing that none of the odd numbers
have squares that are odd.)

1.0.1 Proving something is true for all members of a group

If we want to prove something is true for all odd numbers (for example, that the square
of any odd number is odd), we can pick an arbitrary odd number x, and try to prove the
statement for that number. In the proof, we cannot assume anything about x other than
that it’s an odd number. (So we can’t just set x to be a specific number, like 3, because then
our proof might rely on special properties of the number 3 that don’t generalize to all odd
numbers).
Example: Prove that the square of any odd number is odd.
Proof: Let x be an arbitrary odd number. By definition, an odd number is an integer that
can be written in the form 2k + 1, for some integer k. This means we can write x = 2k + 1,
where k is some integer. So x2 = (2k + 1)2 = 4k 2 + 4k + 1 = 2(2k 2 + 2k) + 1. Since k is an
integer, 2k 2 + 2k is also an integer, so we can write x2 = 2` + 1, where ` = 2k 2 + 2k is an
integer. Therefore, x2 is odd.
Since this logic works for any odd number x, we have shown that the square of any odd
number is odd.

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1.1 Special techniques

In addition to the “pick an arbitrary element” trick, here are several other techniques com-
monly seen in proofs.

1.1.1 Proof by contrapositive

Consider the statement “If it is raining today, then I do not go to class.”
This is logically equivalent to the statement “If I go to class, then it is not raining today.”
So if we want to prove the first statement, it suffices to prove the second statement (which
is called the contrapositive).
Note that it is not equivalent to the statement “If I do not go to class, then it is raining
today” (this is called the fallacy of the converse).
Example: Let x be an integer. Prove that x2 is an odd number if and only if x is an odd
number.
Proof: The “if and only if” in this statement requires us to prove both directions of the
implication. First, we must prove that if x is an odd number, then x2 is an odd number.
Then we should prove that if x2 is an odd number, then x is an odd number.
We have already proven the first statement, so now we just need to prove the second state-
ment. The second statement is logically equivalent to its contrapositive, so it suffices to
prove that “if x is an even number, then x2 is even.”
Suppose x is an even number. This means we can write x = 2k for some integer k. This
means x2 = 4k 2 = 2(2k 2 ). Since k is an integer, 2k 2 is also an integer, so we can write
x2 = 2` for the integer ` = 2k 2 . By definition, this means x2 is an even number.

1.1.2 Proof by contradiction

In proof by contradiction, you assume your statement is not true, and then derive a con-
tradiction. This is really a special case of proof by contrapositive (where your “if” is all of
mathematics, and your “then” is the statement you are trying to prove).
√
Example: Prove that 2 is irrational.
√ √
Proof: Suppose that 2 was rational. √ By definition, this means that 2 can be written as
m/n for some integers m and n. Since 2 = m/n, it follows that 2 = m2 /n2 , so m2 = 2n2 .
Now any square number x2 must have an even number of prime factors, since any prime
factor found in the first x must also appear in the second x. Therefore, m2 must have an
even number of prime factors. However, since n2 must also have an even number of prime
factors, and 2 is a prime number, 2n2 must have an odd number of prime factors. This is a
contradiction, since we claimed that m2 = 2n2 , and no number can have both an even number
of prime factors
√ and an odd number of prime factors. Therefore, our initial assumption was
wrong, and 2 must be irrational.

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1.1.3 Proof by cases

Sometimes it’s hard to prove the whole theorem at once, so you split the proof into several
cases, and prove the theorem separately for each case.
Example: Let n be an integer. Show that if n is not divisible by 3, then n2 = 3k + 1 for
some integer k.
Proof: If n is not divisible by 3, then either n = 3m + 1 (for some integer m) or n = 3m + 2
(for some integer m.
Case 1: Suppose n = 3m + 1. Then n2 = (3m + 1)2 = 9m2 + 6m + 1 = 3(3m2 + 2m) + 1.
Since 3m2 + 2m is an integer, it follows that we can write n2 = 3k + 1 for k = 3m2 + 2m.
Case 2: Suppose n = 3m + 2. Then n2 = (3m + 2)2 = 9m2 + 12m + 4 = 9m2 + 12m + 3 + 1 =
3(3m2 + 4m + 1) + 1. So we can write n2 = 3k + 1 for k = 3m2 + 4m + 1.
Since we have proven the statement for both cases, and since Case 1 and Case 2 reflect all
possible possibilities, the theorem is true.

1.2 Proof by induction

We can use induction when we want to show a statement is true for all positive integers n.
(Note that this is not the only situation in which we can use induction, and that induction
is not (usually) the only way to prove a statement for all positive integers.)
To use induction, we prove two things:
• Base case: The statement is true in the case where n = 1.
• Inductive step: If the statement is true for n = k, then the statement is also true for
n = k + 1.
This actually produces an infinite chain of implications:
• The statement is true for n = 1
• If the statement is true for n = 1, then it is also true for n = 2
• If the statement is true for n = 2, then it is also true for n = 3
• If the statement is true for n = 3, then it is also true for n = 4
• ...
Together, these implications prove the statement for all positive integer values of n. (It does
not prove the statement for non-integer values of n, or values of n less than 1.)
Example: Prove that 1 + 2 + · · · + n = n(n + 1)/2 for all integers n ≥ 1.
Proof: We proceed by induction.
Base case: If n = 1, then the statement becomes 1 = 1(1 + 1)/2, which is true.

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Inductive step: Suppose the statement is true for n = k. This means 1 + 2 + · · · + k =

k(k +1)/2. We want to show the statement is true for n = k +1, i.e. 1+2+· · ·+k +(k +1) =
(k + 1)(k + 2)/2.
By the induction hypothesis (i.e. because the statement is true for n = k), we have 1 + 2 +
· · · + k + (k + 1) = k(k + 1)/2 + (k + 1). This equals (k + 1)(k/2 + 1), which is equal to
(k + 1)(k + 2)/2. This proves the inductive step.
Therefore, the statement is true for all integers n ≥ 1.

1.2.1 Strong induction

Strong induction is a useful variant of induction. Here, the inductive step is changed to
• Base case: The statement is true when n = 1.
• Inductive step: If the statement is true for all values of 1 ≤ n < k, then the statement
is also true for n = k.
This also produces an infinite chain of implications:
• The statement is true for n = 1
• If the statement is true for n = 1, then it is true for n = 2
• If the statement is true for both n = 1 and n = 2, then it is true for n = 3
• If the statement is true for n = 1, n = 2, and n = 3, then it is true for n = 4
• ...
Strong induction works on the same principle as weak induction, but is generally easier to
prove theorems with.
Example: Prove that every integer n greater than or equal to 2 can be factored into prime
numbers.
Proof: We proceed by (strong) induction.
Base case: If n = 2, then n is a prime number, and its factorization is itself.
Inductive step: Suppose k is some integer larger than 2, and assume the statement is true
for all numbers n < k. Then there are two cases:
Case 1: k is prime. Then its prime factorization is just k.
Case 2: k is composite. This means it can be decomposed into a product xy, where x and
y are both greater than 1 and less than k. Since x and y are both less than k, both x and
y can be factored into prime numbers (by the inductive hypothesis). That is, x = p1 . . . ps
and y = q1 . . . qt where p1 , . . . , ps and q1 , . . . , qt are prime numbers.
Thus, k can be written as (p1 . . . ps ) · (q1 . . . qt ), which is a factorization into prime numbers.
This proves the statement.

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2 Important fact from calculus

The definition of the exponential function says that
x
 x n
e = lim 1 +
n→∞ n

In particular, this means that limn→∞ (1 + n1 )n = e and limn→∞ (1 − n1 )n = 1e .

3 Probability
3.1 Fundamentals
The sample space Ω represents the set of all possible things that can happen. For example,
if you are rolling a die, your sample space is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.
An event is a subset of the sample space. For example, the event “I roll a number less than
4” can be represented by the subset {1, 2, 3}. The event “I roll a 6” can be represented by
the subset {6}.
A probability function is a mapping from events to real numbers between 0 and 1. It must
have the following properties:
• P (Ω) = 1
• P (A ∪ B) = P (A) + P (B) for disjoint events A and B (i.e. when A ∩ B = ∅)
Example: For the dice example, we can define the probability function by saying P ({i}) =
1/6 for i = 1, . . . , 6. (That is, we say that each number has an equal probability of being
rolled.) All events in the probability space can be represented as unions of these six disjoint
events.
Using this definition, we can compute the probability of more complicated events, like
P (we roll an odd number) = 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 1/2.
(Note that we can add probabilities here because the events {1}, {3}, and {5} are disjoint.)

3.2 Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion

When A and B are not disjoint, we have
P (A ∪ B) = P (A) + P (B) − P (A ∩ B)

Proof: You can derive this theorem from the probability axioms. A ∪ B can be split into
three disjoint events: A \ B, A ∩ B, and B \ A. Furthermore, A can be split into A \ B and
A ∩ B, and B can be split into B \ A and A ∩ B. So
P (A ∪ B) = P (A \ B) + P (A ∩ B) + P (B \ A)
= P (A \ B) + P (A ∩ B) + P (B \ A) + P (A ∩ B) − P (A ∩ B)
= P (A) + P (B) − P (A ∩ B)

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Example: Suppose k is chosen uniformly at random from the integers 1, 2, . . . , 100. (This
means the probability of getting each integer is 1/100.) Find the probability that k is
divisible by 2 or 5.
By the Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion, P (k is divisible by 2 or 5) = P (k is divisible by 2)+
P (k is divisible by 5) − P (k is divisible by both 2 and 5).
There are 50 numbers divisible by 2, 20 numbers divisible by 5, and 10 numbers divisible by
10 (i.e., divisible by both 2 and 5). Therefore, the probability is 50/100 + 20/100 − 10/100 =
60/100 = 0.6.

3.3 Union bound

For any collection of n events A1 , . . . , An , we have
n
! n
[ X
P Ai ≤ P (Ai )
i=1 i=1

Proof: We can prove this by induction (for finite n).

Base case: Suppose n = 1. Then the statement becomes P (A1 ) ≤ P (A1 ), which is true.
Inductive step: Suppose the statement is true for n = k. We must prove that the statement
is true for n = k + 1. We have
k+1 k
!
[ [
Ai = Ai ∪ Ak+1
i=1 i=1

and by the Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion,

k+1
! k
!
[ [
P Ai ≤ P Ai + P (Ak+1 )
i=1 i=1

Pk
By the induction hypothesis, the first term is less than or equal to i=1 P (Ai ). So
k+1
! k+1
[ X
P Ai ≤ P (Ai )
i=1 i=1

proving the theorem.

Example: Suppose you have a 1 in 100000 chance of getting into a car accident every time
you drive to work. If you drive to work every day of the year, how likely are you to get in a
car accident on your way to work?
Answer: The union bound will not tell you exactly how likely you are to get in a car
accident. However, it will tell you that the probability is upper bounded by 365/100000.

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3.4 Conditional Probability and Bayes’ Rule

Suppose you are administering the GRE, and you discover that 2.5% of students get a perfect
score on the math section.1 By itself, this is not a very useful statistic, because the scores
on the math section vary substantially by major. You dig a little deeper and find that 7.5%
of physical sciences students get a perfect score, 6.3% of engineering students get a perfect
score, and most other majors do substantially worse.2
In the language of conditional probability, we would say that the probability of getting a
perfect score, given that you are a engineering major, is 6.3%:

P (perfect score | engineering major) = 0.063

If we want to actually compute this probability, we would take the number of engineering
majors that receive a perfect score, and divide it by the total number of engineering majors.
This is equivalent to computing the formula

P (perfect score ∩ engineering major)

P (perfect score | engineering major) =
P (engineering major)

In general, we can replace “perfect score” and “engineering major” with any two events, and
we get the formal definition of conditional probability:

P (A ∩ B)
P (A|B) =
P (B)

Example: Suppose you toss a fair coin three times. What is the probability that all three
tosses come up heads, given that the first toss came up heads?
Answer: This probability is

P (all three tosses come up heads and the first toss came up heads) 1/8 1
= =
P (the first toss came up heads) 1/2 4

3.4.1 Independence
Two events are independent if the fact that one event happened does not affect the probability
that the other event happens. In other words

P (A|B) = P (A)

This also implies that

P (A ∩ B) = P (A)P (B)
1
See https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre guide table4.pdf for a breakdown by specific majors.
2
For some reason, computer science is counted as part of the physical sciences, and not as engineering.

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Example: We implicitly used the independence assumption in the previous calculation,

when we were computing the probability that all three coin tosses come up heads. This
probability is 1/8 because the probability that each toss comes up heads is 1/2, and the
three events are independent of each other.

3.4.2 Bayes’ Rule

We can apply the definition of conditional probability to get
P (A ∩ B) P (B|A)P (A)
P (A|B) = =
P (B) P (B)

In addition, we can say

P (B|A)P (A) P (B|A)P (A) P (B|A)P (A)
P (A|B) = = =
P (B) P (B ∩ A) + P (B ∩ not A) P (B|A)P (A) + P (B|not A)P (not A)

Example: Suppose 1% of women who enter your clinic have breast cancer, and a woman
with breast cancer has a 90% chance of getting a positive result, while a woman without
breast cancer has a 10% chance of getting a false positive result. What is the probability of
a woman having breast cancer, given that she just had a positive test?
Answer: By Bayes’ Rule,

P (positive | cancer)P (cancer)

P (cancer | positive) =
P (positive)
P (positive | cancer)P (cancer)
=
P (positive | cancer)P (cancer) + P (positive | not cancer)P (not cancer)
0.9 · 0.01
=
0.9 · 0.01 + 0.1 · 0.99
= 8.3%

3.5 Random variables

A random variable X is a variable that can take on different values depending on the outcome
of some probabilistic process. It can be defined as a function X : Ω → R that yields a different
real number depending on which point in the sample space you choose.
Example: Suppose we are tossing three coins. Let X be the number of coins that come up
heads. Then P (X = 0) = 1/8.

3.5.1 PMF/PDFs and CDFs

A random variable can take on either a discrete range of values or a continuous range of
values. If it takes a discrete range of values, the function that assigns a probability to each
possible value is called the probability mass function.

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Example: Let X be the number shown on a fair six-sided die. Then the probability mass
function for X is P (X = i) = 1/6.
Formally, we define p(x) to be the probability mass function (PMF) of a discrete variable X
such that p(x) = P (X = x).
The PMF must have the following properties:
• p(x) ≥ 0 ∀x
P
• x p(x)dx = 1

If the random variable takes a continuous range of values, the equivalent of the probability
mass function is called the probability density function. The tricky thing about probability
density functions is that the probability of getting a specific number (say X = 3.258) is zero.
So we can only talk about the probability of getting a number that lies within a certain
range.
We define f (x) to be the probability density function of a continuous random variable X if
Rb
P (a ≤ X ≤ b) = a f (x)dx. Here the probability is just the area under the curve of the
PDF.
The PDF must have the following properties:
• f (x) ≥ 0 ∀x
R∞
• −∞ f (x)dx = 1
R
• x∈A f (x)dx = P (X ∈ A)
The cumulative distribution function (or CDF) of a random variable X expresses the prob-
ability that the random variable is less than or equal to the argument. It is given by
F (x) = P (X ≤ x).
For discrete random variables, the CDF can be expressed as the sum of the PMF
X
F (x) = p(y)
y≤x

For continuous random variables, the CDF can be expressed as the integral of the PDF
Z x
F (x) = f (t)dt
−∞

The CDF must have the following properties:

• F (x) must be between 0 and 1
• F (x) must be nondecreasing
• F (x) must be right-continuous
• limx→−∞ F (x) = 0, limx→∞ F (x) = 1

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3.6 Expectation and variance

3.6.1 Expectation
The expected value (or mean) of a random variable can be interpreted as a weighted average.
For a discrete random variable, we have
X
E[X] = x · P (X = x)
x

For a continuous random variable,

Z ∞
E[X] = x · f (x)dx
−∞

where f (x) is the probability density function.

Example: Suppose your happiness is a 10 when it’s sunny outside, and a 2 when it’s raining
outside. It’s sunny 80% of the time and raining 20% of the time. What is the expected value
of your happiness?
Answer: 10 · 0.8 + 2 · 0.2 = 8.4.

3.6.2 Linearity of expectation

If X and Y are two random variables, and a is a constant, then

E[X + Y ] = E[X] + E[Y ]

and
E[aX] = aE[X]
This is true even if X and Y are not independent.

3.6.3 Variance
The variance of a random variable is a measure of how far away the values are, on average,
from the mean. It is defined as

V ar(X) = E[(X − E[X])2 ] = E[X 2 ] − E[X]2

For a random variable X and a constant a, we have V ar(X + a) = V ar(X) and V ar(aX) =
a2 V ar(X).
We do not have V ar(X + Y ) = V ar(X) + V ar(Y ) unless X and Y are uncorrelated (which
means they have covariance 0). In particular, independent random variables are always
uncorrelated, although the reverse doesn’t hold.

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3.7 Special random variables

3.7.1 Bernoulli random variables
A Bernoulli random variable with parameter p can be interpreted as a coin flip that comes
up heads with probability p, and tails with probability 1 − p.
If X is a Bernoulli random variable, i.e. X ∼ Bernoulli(p), then P (X = 1) = p and
P (X = 0) = 1 − p.
We also have
E[X] = 1 · p + 0 · (1 − p) = p
and
V ar(X) = E[X 2 ] − (E[X])2 = p − p2 = p(1 − p)

3.7.2 Geometric random variables

Suppose you keep flipping a coin until you get heads. A geometric random variable with pa-
rameter p measures how many times you have to flip the coin if each time it has a probability
p of coming up heads. It is defined by the distribution

P (X = k) = p(1 − p)k−1

Furthermore, E[X] = 1/p and V ar(X) = (1 − p)/p2 .

3.7.3 Uniform random variables

A uniform random variable is a continuous random variable, where you sample a point
uniformly at random from a given interval. If X ∼ U nif orm(a, b), then the probability
density function is given by (
1
a≤x≤b
f (x) = b−a
0 otherwise

We have E[X] = (a + b)/2, and V ar(X) = (b − a)2 /12.

3.7.4 Normal random variables

A normal random variable is a point sampled from the normal distribution, which has all
sorts of interesting statistical properties. If X ∼ N ormal(µ, σ 2 ), then the probability density
function is given by
1 1 2
f (x) = √ e− 2σ2 (x−µ)
2πσ

Also, E[X] = µ and V ar(X) = σ 2 .

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3.8 Indicator random variables

An indicator random variable is a variable that is 1 if an event occurs, and 0 otherwise:
(
1 if event A occurs
IA =
0 otherwise

The expectation of an indicator random variable is just the probability of the event occurring:

E[IA ] = 1 · P (IA = 1) + 0 · P (IA = 0)

= P (IA = 1)
= P (A)

Indicator random variables are very useful for computing expectations of complicated random
variables, especially when combined with the property that the expectation of a sum of
random variables is the sum of the expectations.
Example: Suppose we are flipping n coins, and each comes up heads with probability p.
What is the expected number of coins that come up heads?
Answer: Let Xi be the indicator random
P variable that
P is 1 if the ith coin comes up heads,
and 0 otherwise. Then E[ ni=1 Xi ] = ni=1 E[Xi ] = ni=1 p = np.
P

3.9 Inequalities
3.9.1 Markov’s inequality
For any random variable X that takes only non-negative values, we have
E[X]
P (X ≥ a) ≤
a
for a > 0.
You can derive this as follows. Let IX≥a be the indicator random variable that is 1 if X ≥ a,
and 0 otherwise. Then aIX≥a ≤ X (convince yourself of this!). Taking expectations on both
sides, we get aE[IX≥a ] ≤ E[X], so P (X ≥ a) ≤ E[X]/a.

3.9.2 Chebyshev’s inequality

If we apply Markov’s inequality to the random variable (X − E[X])2 , we get

2 2 E[(X − E[X])2 ]
P ((X − E[X]) ) ≥ a ) ≤
a2
or
V ar(X)
P (|X − E[X]|) ≥ a) ≤
a2
This gives a bound on how far a random variable can be from its mean.

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3.9.3 Chernoff bound

Suppose X1 , . . . ,P
Xn are independent Bernoulli random variables, where P (Xi = 1) = pi .
Denoting µ = E[ ni=1 Xi ] = ni=1 pi , we get
P

n
!  µ
X eδ
P Xi ≥ (1 + δ)µ ≤
i=1
(1 + δ)1+δ

for any δ.

4 Material adapted from

Greg Baker, “Introduction to Proofs”
https://www.cs.sfu.ca/~ggbaker/zju/math/proof.html
CS 103 Winter 2016, “Guide to Proofs”
http://stanford.io/2dexnf9
Peng Hui How, “Proof? A Supplementary Note For CS161”
http://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs161/cs161.1168/HowToWriteCorrectnessProof.pdf
Nihit Desai, Sameep Bagadia, David Hallac, Peter Lofgren, Yu “Wayne” Wu, Borja Pelato,
“Quick Tour of Linear Algebra and Graph Theory”
http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-2014/recitation/linear_algebra/LA_Slides.pdf
http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-2015/recitation/linear_algebra.pdf
“Quick tour to Basic Probability Theory”
http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-2015/recitation/prob_tutorial.pdf
“Bayes’ Formula”
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2008-2009/TianyiZheng/Bayes.html

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