Week 1

First week of CSC165 is over! Well, technically two weeks, but first week of introducing concepts. Things we learned this week include: universal / existential statements, negation and (today) vacuous truth. I'll go over the first two in one paragraph and the third in a second.

Firstly, universal / existential statements and negation are really simple concepts. They can sometimes get a bit tricky when there are a lot of them combined together, but they are still not too complicated. One tip for anyone who actually reads this blog would be to write down every single statement in a line. The line doesn't have to make English sense, just translate universal (all) to "for every", translate existential (any) to "there exists" and translate "not" to "not". For example AxED, x > 4 translates to "for every x element of D, x is greater than 4". This strategy works wonders in difficult situations. I may make a dictionary of "symbols --> words" if I feel it would be useful to anyone.

Vacuous truth is a bit more complicated, but it's also pretty funny. For example, for every xE{}, x > ∞. Very interesting. Either way, the concept can get confusing but my trick with the writing sentences still works (I think, I haven't tested it). I think that the combination of these two things will prove to be very entertaining in the coming week(s).

Nothing too hard yet and nothing that I can't understand, but then again it's only the second week. I'm sure I'll have my mind blown by November, if not sooner. Until then, I'll post again next week!