Over the past weeks, we learnt the basics of logic that I got a glimpse of in MAT137. I have liked puzzles since I was a kid and elements of logic come naturally from the exercise of solving puzzles.
One thing, that I had some trouble with in the first weeks of class was translating from English to the language of math. For example, There is a pen, and a telephone would translate to (∃x ∈ O, P(x)) ∧ (∃x ∈ O, T(x)), not ∃x ∈ O, P(x) ∧ T(x) as I had originally thought. Another segment of the lecture, I had trouble with was "sentence vs statement" which sounds quite simple at first glance but 2 hours into a 3 hour lecture, even the easiest topics take a while to register. It also didn't help that many of them seemed to have the same context but were unrelated, and I felt they were somewhat poorly phrased and only complicated the subject matter.
After learning the basic symbols and language of logic we learned some quantifiers and ways to evaluate logic statements. But what interested me most was our introduction to negation. I think it may have been because we did a lot of exercises to negate logic statements, and the lectures felt more like puzzle solving sessions and were much more enjoyable.
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ReplyDeleteYes, it was basically a review for me as well, since I am also a former MAT137 student. However, I personally enjoyed the "sentence vs statements" aspect of the lecture, since I found it be more mentally stimulating. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading your blog post, keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. I guess I am not very interested in language and linguistics so it didn't excite me as much.
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