Welcome
To Logic and Discrete Math!
Syllabus Homework Table of Contents for ML truth tables
This
course is much different than the algebra or calculus classes you've had before.
Those are very computational, while this course involves less number crunching
and more reasoning and logical arguments. You'll be doing a lot of writing
in this course, and writing takes practice! The basic rules of writing must of
course be followed. That means using capital letters, periods, and proof-reading
for spelling and grammar. It often helps to read sentences out-loud to see if
they sound correct.
On
top of that, you'll be learning to use mathematical arguments and proof
techniques. We'll go into these in detail, but they include Direct Proofs,
Proofs by Contradiction, and Mathematical Induction.
Finally,
when you have the basic proof techniques down pat, you'll be asked to prove
mathematical statements. So, there are three levels--the English Composition
part, the structure of the proof, and the actual mathematics involved.
The
mathematics will, for the most part, be fairly straight forward concepts that
you've probably already studied. We'll look at properties of even and odd
numbers for example. What is different is that, while you all know what an odd
number is, you'll have to use a very precise mathematical definition to work
with it. It is crucial that you not only understand a concept (an odd number),
but that you can work with a formal definition of the concept (an odd number is
any number that can be written in the form 2n +1, where n is an integer).
This
is just a brief explanation of the goals of the course. It might seem
intimidating, but we'll build up to this slowly, so you'll do fine as long as
you keep up with the homework and practice writing and communicating mathematics
precisely.
Links:
Website
for the Rosen text (Note this is a newer edition, but should be
very comparable.)
The links below are for courses similar to ours. If you want extra reading material, or miss class and want some lecture notes, you might try looking for our topics in these pages.
Course notes (with problems and solutions) from Old Dominion University