Let Us Fold Paper!

Welcome back fellow CSC165 classmates to my second blog! As you have noticed, time has passed by so quickly. Can you imagine that we have completed three weeks of classes? I wonder if everyone has started preparations for mid-term exams. Sadly for us students, exams are right around the corner. Stress! I have come to a legitimate conclusion that work never comes to an end at university!

Now let us talk about what is really important here, CSC165. This course never ceases to amaze me each and every time. It is filled with the type of logic that has never even entered my mind before. Take for instance, the logic behind obtaining the pattern for folding a strip of paper. Sounds simple right? In my opinion it was mind boggling because it required individuals to use their level of observation as well as mathematical logic. I would have never thought in a million years about finding the pattern that was created after folding something so simple as piece of paper.

For this exercise we were required to understand the problem that was presented; construct a plan, then proceed to execute it and report the pattern observed. We got into pairs and each came up with unique ideas to solve the up and down sequence for four folds. Some students tabulated their results in a two columned table with “Number of Folds” on one side and “Pattern” on the other. Some students used the up and down arrows to demonstrate the pattern while some actually drew out the pattern to predict each sequence.

Through this exercise in class on Friday 26^th September, I am convinced that Computer Scientists are more than just individuals who sit near a computer and write code all day. They are the logical thinkers who solve both simple and difficult problems in a sequential manner in which can make life so much more organized.

What are your thoughts on the paper folding exercise?

Comment below!

Wake Up It Is CSC165!

Welcome everyone to my newly established weekly blog on Mathematical Expressions and Reasoning! To make this course sound even more high tech as soon to be Computer Scientists should do, we must include numbers. So let`s try that again, welcome fellow bloggers and TA`s to the CSC165 blog!

What a two weeks it has been especially for us first years! Hustling and bustling to get to class, feeling like a speck in classes filled with hundreds of students while feeling absolutely dumbfounded when the professors take their articulate speaking to a whole new level.

CSC165 is quite different from the introduction to programming course (CSC108) in that it actually requires you to think outside the box; logically and smartly. It is one of those courses which can tie your brain in knots if you do not understand the language used. On the other hand CSC108 is a more straightforward and hands on course.

We now arrive at the dreaded Sets! Sets! Sets! The topic that I have not done in six years and never really knew its application until a full two weeks of it in CSC165. The first week was basically determining whether a claim was true or false about sets. In other words this is known as quantification. In order to prove quantified claims as true or false we should take into consideration two main things:

     1. In order to prove a universal claim as true, there should be no counter examples.

     2.  In order to prove a universal claim as false, at least one counter example should be identified.

Now on to the famous interconnected topics of Implication, Converse and Contrapositive which were all touched on in both weeks 1 and 2. These topics in particular completely baffled my mind because they are unlike anything that I have done before. You would think by doing Computer Science, you would relieve yourself from English, but boy I was wrong! If I have to describe these topics, I would refer to them as a form of twisted logic. In order to express implication, P must imply Q.

For example if you have this sentence: If you do your homework, you will pass all your exams.

The implication for this sentence is: If you do your homework (P), you will pass all your exams (Q).

The converse of this sentence is: If you passed all your exams (Q), you did your homework (P).

The contrapositive of this sentence is: If you did not pass all your exams (if not Q), you did not do your homework (then not P).

What were your experiences like for the two weeks in CSC165 so far?

Comment  below!