Where & When
Class (#43811/#42915) meets in O'Connor 103 from 11:45am to 12:50pm
Syllabus
The course syllabus can be viewed here.
Final Exam
Wed Dec 10 9:10am–12:10pm (registrar's schedule)
(In the usual classroom, O'Connor 103)
Goals & Objectives
In this course, students will gain "mathematical maturity" ― in
particular the ability to create and comprehend mathematical
arguments. We will focus on mathematical arguments in various areas;
in each area, students will build up requisite background knowledge (often useful by itself), culminating in the students being able to:
- Prove (or
disprove) that two propositions are logically equivalent.
- Prove that two sets are equal.
- Determine if a function
is invertible.
- Determine the next term
in a sequence, total complicated summations, and encrypt and decrypt
secret messages.
- Count how many
passwords are possible given certain constraints, count how many ways
one can get particular poker hands, etc.
In addition to learning these various concepts which are useful in
their own right, students will achieve our overarching goal: they will
be able to read mathematical arguments written by others and they will
be able to produce their own proper mathematical arguments ― not
only on the primary topics listed above (and others that we will cover
in the course), but also on other topics that the students will come
upon in the future.
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