It's not logic, It's intuition.

The mass public refer to someone who is good at math as "logical", that math is a "logical subject."  I think this stereotype should be broken once and for all, from doing proofs in the past week for assignment 2 and doing the homework, it is clear to me that math is creativity, it is intuition, to have the instincts to see how a math statement can be manipulated from antecedent to conclusion.  It is not just logic that is guiding the process, for, how can anyone, say that they" logically" arrived at the delta for a delta-epsilon proof for the limit of the function sin(x)/x as x approaches 0, such that the resulting limit is 0?  Or how can anyone prove that there are an infinite number of prime numbers using logic? As we have all seen in class -- the proof was a proof by contradiction,  reducing the alternate assumption "there are finite prime numbers" to absurdity.  I was lucky, from having experience with doing proofs in MAT137, I had already obtained a toolbox of strategies and techniques I can employ doing proofs, but some of my classmates may struggle, especially with delta epsilon proofs.  So I say to my classmates that this set-back is not because of logic, don't worry, what all of us are really lacking is intuition.

Relief as test one is over. Onward to proofs.

Yay! Test one is over and done with.  I am quite happy because I think I did pretty well on it, judging from the sample solutions given.  This week we learned the structures of proofs, which was quite interesting, and some of the stuff, like assuming the antecedent and proceed from there to prove the 'then' part, are exactly the same as what I have learned in MAT137.  I like the fact that the general guidelines for proofs is the same across subjects, and it is very cool that computer scientists have to do proofs as well.  It has not been too hard because we are just learning about the skeletons of proofs, but I am sure when we tackle actual proofs, heads will start rolling.  

A Meditation in Logic: A 180 minutes journey through the mountain of Course Notes

I did not even fathom how much my understanding of CSC165 materials was lacking.

It was Tuesday night, another dry lecture by Larry from 6-9;  the self-evidential nature of CSC165, or so I thought, clear as daylight.   The dawn of my realization of my ignorance was not so much the materials pouring from the slides, but rather the endless rumbles of the classmates beside me, rumbling about assignment # 1, the hill that must be climbed by friday at 10 p.m, swiftly gaining as the wind of time flows by.  Piquing my senses, I drew my eyes over the assignment, experiencing it for the first time on Tuesday night.  My star has graced me on that night, for if I did not look at it on that day, I would be utterly lost, helpless, frozen to the bones as October arrives with its deathly chills.  I was blinded to the difference between if - then statements and conjunctions-disjunctions, the importance of vacuous truths, and the relationships between all of them, as either predicates or sets.  I needed to learn quickly, if i were to translate the english statements given in the assignment and negate it into mathematical language correctly, and be on track for the upcoming term test on Tuesday.  There were two paths I could take to understand what I needed, I could consult De Morgan's Laws or I could think about them, ponder upon them, until I arrive to an intuitive understanding of them.  Stubbornly, I went over Course Notes and meditated for approximately three hours on the materials.  This was Wednesday.  The answers did not come fast, there were important distinctions, key observations about the nature of each symbol, that I needed to make and to be throughly satisfied with my understanding of them.  It was a René Descartes moment, where I contemplated on the course material and challenged my assumptions about them,  to think as if it has never been thought about before.  I was in deep water, and all around me were mountains needed to be climbed, the Tree of Knowledge awaiting, the hill of assignment #1 in the way, and I knew that if I conquered assignment #1, I would be one step closer to this Tree and its fruits.  Through my 180 minutes journey through the mountain of Course Notes,  I am one giant step closer to understanding the materials shining from behind Larry, which I can only hope will be enough for the coming days, as October edges closer.



**I would also like to add that Larry is a cool guy and that no insult is meant when I said the lecture is dry.  The term simply suited the environment of the piece.**