Next Week's Homework Assignment

Written homework: sections 1.2 and 1.3
Webwork section 1.3 (opens on Thursday after class)

webwork question

                 "I didn't realize I only had 3 tries on a Web Work problem and couldn't finish it, What should I do?"

This problem can be avoided by first anonymously logging in to webwork as "student", working the problems until you get them correct, and only then logging in as yourself to work the problem correctly so that the your score can be recorded. 

FIrst Webwork Assignment

The first webwork assignment (section 1.1) will open tomorrow right after class, and close at 11:59PM next Tuesday.  Webwork can be accessed at here.  The introduction to webwork is also open, and suggested for those who haven't worked with webwork before.

A Puzzle

 A census taker approaches a woman leaning on her gate and asks about the ages of her children. She says, "I have three children and the product of their ages is seventy–two. The sum of their ages is the number on this gate." The census taker does some calculation and claims not to have enough information. The woman enters her house, but before slamming the door tells the census taker, "I have to see to my eldest child who is in bed with measles." The census taker departs, satisfied.

What are the ages of the three children?

Homework

Note that the book homework for section 1.1 is due on Thursday

Office Hours


 Some 38 of 53 MAT243 students responded to the office hours poll and received 10 extra credit points.  There were 15 students who did not respond and who did not receive 10 extra credit points....
I just announced the new office hours on the course syllabus by email.  They are
Tuesdays Noon-1:00PM
Wednesdays 9:00AM-10:00AM
Fridays 11:00AM-Noon
There were no emails returned as undeliverable, so it looks like electronic communications are all operational.  Of course, this doesn't mean that everybody is listening...but I keep hoping for the best outcome.

Hey Dr. Taylor, I got onto Khan Academy to look around and see what was on there but I don't see anything for discrete math.  Am I just looking in the wrong spot or is it under another name?

Try searching on specific terms that were used in the lecture and/or the textbook.  For example, here's a movie and some exercises directly related to the lecture today.

Conditional statements and deductive reasoning 

Conditional statements exercise examples

Conditional statements 

Logical argument and deductive reasoning exercise example 

Logical arguments and deductive reasoning

Conditional statements and truth value

Logical reasoning

 

 

 

Hi all,

Welcome to my MAT243 blog for Fall 2013.  There are more than 50 students in this course.  This means that we will have to keep a fairly rigid schedule with the lectures (normally I like to slow down or speed up according to feedback from the students).

This week and next week we'll be concerned about propositional logic--more about this in class.  This is the classical logic in which propositions take two values only--true and false--and in which the truth values of compound propositions are determined from precise rules involving the truth values of the components.  Note that a binary valued variable also takes two values, zero and one.  There is an important and useful connection between logic and binary arithmetic according to the rule True->1, False->0. This means that, although a major purpose of propositional logic is learning how to think, it also serves as the backdrop for many calculations involving binary numbers, that is with the inner workings of computers.