A Motivational Thought

"Everyone is sure of this [that errors are normally distributed], Mr. Lippman told me one day, since the experimentalists believe that it is a mathematical theorem, and the mathematicians that it is an experimentally determined fact."--Henri Poincaré

Course Announcements

Summary

A survey of numerical approaches to the continuous mathematics used throughout computer science with an emphasis on machine and deep learning. Although motivated from the standpoint of machine learning, the course will focus on the underlying mathematical methods including computational linear algebra and optimization, as well as special topics such as automatic differentiation via backward propagation, momentum methods from ordinary differential equations, CNNs, RNNs, diffusion, etc. Written homework assignments and (straightforward) quizzes focus on various concepts.

This course replaces CS 205A and satisfies all similar requirements.

Prerequisites

• Math 51 and either Math 104 or Math 113, or equivalents, or comfort with the associated material.

Meeting Times

• Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00pm to 1:20pm at the NVIDIA Auditorium in the Huang Engineering Center.
• The class will be recorded for SCPD/CGOE on Canvas, as usual.
• All students (Stanford and SCPD/CGOE) can access the lecture live during the lecture times (as well as the recording afterward) through Canvas:
  • Log in to Canvas using your Stanford SUNet ID.
  • Navigate to the CS205L Winter 2026 page.
  • Look for and click on the "Panopto Course Videos" page.
  • The lecture live stream should start shortly before lecture time, and the recordings go up a few hours after processing.

Staff

• Instructor
  • Ron Fedkiw
  • Office Hours: Most Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30pm to 2:30pm
    Given the large size of the class in recent years, Ron's office hours (held via Zoom) are by appointment only (to better address emergencies).
  • * Ron's office hours are geared towards the lecture material; for homework help, we want students to get to know the CAs, as they'll be doing the grading.
• Course Staff
  • Head CA: Kevin Li -- kevli@CS.stanford.edu
  • Course Manager: Amelie Byun
  • Course Advisor: Swati Dube
  • Please primarily use the staff mailing list -- cs205l-staff-win2526@cs.stanford.edu -- for matters too sensitive/personal for Ed. This mailing list will be monitored by the instructor, head CA, course manager, and student liaison. This is where you should submit OAE letters if you have them.
• Course Assistants (CAs) -- Refer to Canvas for the schedule and locations of office hours. Office hour changes and rescheduling will be announced on Ed. Please primarily use Ed to contact the CAs unless you need to reach out to a specific CA, in which case their emails are below.
  • Katherine Worden (Student Liaison) -- worden@stanford.edu
  • Anavi Baddepudi -- anavib@stanford.edu
  • Andrew Bempong -- bempong@stanford.edu
  • George Birikorang -- george25@stanford.edu
  • Anshika Agarwal -- anshika@stanford.edu
  • Noah Anderson -- noah446@stanford.edu
  • Jennifer Grannen -- jgrannen@stanford.edu
  • Felicity Huang -- huangfe@stanford.edu
  • Jinhyo Huh -- jinhyo@stanford.edu
  • Noah Islam -- noahyuki@stanford.edu
  • Charles Joyner -- chasezj@stanford.edu
  • Nikhil Lyles -- nlyles@stanford.edu
  • Alberto Mancarella -- alberto9@stanford.edu
  • Ismail Mardin -- ikmardin@stanford.edu
  • Kwame Ocran -- kano@stanford.edu
  • Mack Smith -- macks26@stanford.edu
  • Bobby Yan -- bobbyy@stanford.edu