Monday, April 16, 2007

I am highly illogical

My Discrete Mathematics class is kicking my ass. Proofs and p ^ ~q and truth tables. GAH! My head feels like it's going to explode.

Anyone have any tips to keep me from going insane? (Math logic is a lot like philosophical logic, but with more symbols)

(We'll find out how truly bad I am at logic after I have my first test on Thursday. Hopefully I won't fall asleep like I did during my linear algebra test (bad migraine pain kept me up all night, I still passed it though). AHHHH LOGIC!)

Is it just me or do logic classes seem to make no sense at all?

For those of you interested in the mathematics of nature (what I'm going to give my senior presentation on for the hippy college I actually go to even though I'm a math major on main campus) check out this.

Mmmmm....champagne mangos. Back to (il)logic.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those p and q tables were probably my favorite thing about high school math.

A linguistics professor once told me she thought people's minds tended to be geared towards picking up either phonology or syntax but not both. She may have been saying it to comfort me because I was having a hard time with phonology while syntax, the usual tough spot for students, was a breeze and came as naturally to me as math logic.

Moral of story: you can't be good at everything so don't stress. Good luck on Thursday.

Cellycel said...

Good luck on Thursday.

My SO failed discrete mathematics the first time he took it, and passed the second time. It looks difficult, and I know that later in my course I'll have to take it.

It looks hard!

I'll ask 'im if e's got any tips for staying sane, but I doubt that'll help much. ^^

Ms.PhD said...

My only advice is to try to study first thing in the morning, and go get some heavy exercise in if you find yourself losing patience.

I know for me the key to learning anything is sitting still and focusing long enough to deal with the parts that are unintuitive.

I for one, despite being highly logical, am also *too intuitive*. Because of that, I tend to get impatient with things that take a long time to work through or have confusing naming/labeling schemes.

Hang in there, you can do it. Did you try the trick of getting different textbooks until you find one(s) that work for you? Sometimes the problem is really the book, and/or the professor, not the subject.

Clare said...

Instantiate the tables and they will make more sense.

For example: p (therefore) ~q.

It's raining therefore it's not sunny.

See if this makes it more feasible...

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