Proofs, Axioms and Truth Tables

    So yet again, another week has passed filled with equations, axioms, numbers and abstract symbols.  We're starting proofs on Friday, as Danny had introduced it on Wednesday as to what is a proof etc etc.  I'm actually somewhat excited to see what proofs we'll be doing in class and hopefully they wont be too difficult.  I noticed that symbolic logic, like any other mathematical branch, is just based on a finite set of axioms and from those axioms we can deduce and derive more axioms and theorems.  I'm assuming that we will be using the fundamental axioms of symbolic logic and much of its theorems to do our proofs.  I didn't really know what truth tables were used for until I went to tutorial/office hours.  I knew how to use them but didn't know their purpose.  Other than that, thats all I really have to say for this week's "slog" posting.

Thanks for reading.
Patrick.

Flooded with assignments.

    Ahh...  Another long week at uoft.  Getting swamped with exercises and problem sets and I just so happened to be lucky enough to have the 165 assignment due the same day as my 301 problem set.  Life is good (sarcasm, of course).  The assignment wasn't too horrible.  The only parts that I found difficult were the negation translations of certain conjunctions such as the "or" and "and" as well as an "if and only if".  Question 3 was quite brutal in terms of translating long symbolic logic into English that made sense.  Translating it from symbols to English was not a problem at all, however, trying to make it sound like natural and non-robotic was what I found difficult.  I've written most of my assignment 1 up, but just need to clarify 2-3 questions with Danny.  During the write up process, it was pretty painful I must say, to look for each symbol in word or to copy and paste it from wiki, so I just ended up using "/exists", "/and" and "/forany" etc etc.

    So far the course hasn't been too heavy for me.  However, I do admit that it is very time consuming and I do have to review the lecture notes from time to time as there are conjunctions and negation translations that I have not yet drilled into my head.  I've been able to keep up with my tutorial problem sets as well, and I'm pretty caught up in the course.  I've also found that Danny's teaching strategy is very helpful.  He lectures but posts the slides online so that way in class, you can fully devote your attention to what he's saying.  Most of my math courses are not like this.  I'm usually focusing all my attention on copying notes and whatever the professor says, just flies right through my head.  Not exactly a great way of comprehension.  I really wish my other professors would adopt the same teaching strategy but I guess it would just encourage students to not come to class etc. etc.

Thanks for reading, Patrick.

Quantifiers, Negation and Logic

    So, as the second week of the term comes to an end, I've concluded two things about this course.  The first is that I realize there will not be any actual mathematics being used in this course, even though its called mathematical expression.  Second is that I've realized its purely based on symbolic logic.  I've realized why this is such a crucial course in the computer science department.  The use of symbolic logic helps you develop critical thinking processes and skills required for programming or that may be very useful in programming.  Sometimes when I'm reading over someones code and I try to decipher their code or make sense of what they're trying to do, its tough.  There will be while loops over for loops over a while loop with a counter in the back, etc, etc, and it gets all boggled up in your head.  Courses like 165 will help with these type of situations and thinking steps.  I realized this, this week, during lecture when Danny was using tons of symbols in the scope of quantifiers with sets and subsets etc etc.

Anyways, that's what I thought of this weeks lecture.
Thanks for reading, Patrick.

First week of 165

Hey readers!

    I usually don't do blogs but since it's required I guess I'm here.  Over the semester, my blog will be covering my experience with the courses, what I find easy, difficult, how I found past assignments and tests and what I think of the overall course and my experience, of course.  My sentence structure and grammar as well as proper use of punctuality may not be as strong as most blogs on this website, mainly because my focus of study is Math and Computer Science (double major).  I'm in third year math and first year computer science.  I'm currently about a semester or two away from finishing my math major and I'm enrolled as a third year student at uoft.  The courses I'm currently taking this semester are MAT315, MAT301, CSC148, CSC165, AST251.  Anyways, thats enough about me, I'll start talking about my experience for the first week in csc165.

    My first week in csc165 was warmly welcomed by my professor Danny Heap.  He introduced himself as Danny, and requested that we not call him professor, sir or anything like that other than Danny.  I found this very reassuring as this was a very kind and friendly gesture to the first day of class.  As Danny introduced the course, I knew right away what type of course I would be dealing with this semester.  It appeared to be symbolic logic.  Being in third year math, not trying to brag or anything, I've had quite some experience with the notations being introduced during the end of the first week, such notations being "there exists" and "for any".  With that being said, I didn't find the first week or that particular class very unfamiliar.  I can, however, say that Danny did a good job on introducing the notations to the many students who are unfamiliar to this language as I can imagine if I hadn't seen these symbols before, I would be a bit confused myself.
Overall, I enjoyed the first week of class and look forward and actually surprisingly, am somewhat excited for this course to proceed further into the school year.

Cheers,
Patrick.