General Class Information Class Handouts Scores Assignments Reference Materials Lecture Notes

CSc 144 Discrete Math for CS I Fall 2024 Lester I. McCann, Ph.D.

The University of Arizona College of Science Department of Computer Science McCann's Home Page

General Class Information

• Class syllabus (general course information)
• D2L Site Mainly useful for textbook access.
• Class Q&A Board. We're using Piazza for class discussions this semester.
• Some thoughts about exams:
  • Characteristics of Good Exam Answers (suggestions on how to reply to short-answer exam questions)
  • Suggestions for Studying For and Taking Exams (what to do before and during an exam)

Class Handouts       (In case you lost your copy, or missed class)

• Syllabus Summary (2024-08-26) Be sure to see the full version of the syllabus, linked above!
• The Page O' Logical Equivalences (a.k.a. POLE) (2024-09-16)
• Demonstrating Logical Equivalences Without Truth Tables (2024-09-19; online only)
• Definitions to know for Exam #1 (2024-09-20)
• A Sample Version of Exam #1 (online only):
  • The Questions (2024-09-19)
  • The Answers (2024-09-26)
• Direct Proof Examples (2024-10-16; online only)
• Definitions to know for Exam #2 (2024-10-16)
• 'Contra' Proof Examples (2024-11-17, online only)
• Definitions to know for Exam #3 (2024-11-15)

Current Course Grades       (Updated after each exam has been graded)

• Current Grades (Updated: 2024-10-25 11:45 p.m.)

Assignments

• Homework #1 Due: 2024-09-13
• Homework #2 Due: 2024-09-20
• Practice Homework #1 "Due": 2024-09-25 (in Exam #1's review session)
• Homework #3 Due: 2024-10-11
• Homework #4 Due: 2024-10-18
  • Quick-'n'-Dirty Prolog Tutorial (PDF)
  • Homework #4 Question 8 initial facts (text file)
  • The GNU Prolog Manual (HTML)
  • On D2L, in the Content / Class Assignments area: A half-hour video on using SSH/PuTTY, nano, gprolog, and turnin
  • family.pl - the Prolog example used in the tutorial.
• Practice Homework #2 "Due": 2024-10-23 (in Exam #2's review session)
• Homework #5 Due: 2024-11-08
• Homework #6 Due: 2024-11-15
• Practice Homework #3 "Due": 2024-11-20 (in Exam #3's review session)

Reference Materials       (Pointers to additional information)

• The text for this semester is Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, 8th ed., by Kenneth H. Rosen, 2019.
  • Do not buy an international edition or an earlier edition! Instead...
  • This book is available as an ebook via the Pay One Price program, or you can also get it from the publisher as an ebook or in print.
  • You might also wish to consider purchasing the companion Student Solutions Guide, which offers detailed solutions to the text's odd-numbered end-of-section exercises.
• Kneel Before Z^odd is a draft of several chapters (and an appendix) that I've written to cover my lecture material through roughly the first half of the old CSc 245 course. Much of it is also applicable to this class.
  • Access info is available on Piazza.
  • Prefer to access the chapters individually? Here are links to separate PDF files for each chapter (and the appendix):
    • Chapter 1: Logic
    • Chapter 2: Quantified Expressions
    • Chapter 3: Logical Arguments
    • Chapter 4: Direct Proofs
    • Chapter 5: Indirect ("Contra") Proofs
    • Chapter 6: Additional Set Concepts
    • Chapter 7: Matrices
    • Chapter 8: Relations
    • Appendix A: Math Review
• There are some other online textbooks that cover parts of the material in this class:
  • Connecting Discrete Mathematics and Computer Science by David Liben-Nowell. This is a pre-print version a now-published textbook.
  • "Book of Proof" by Richard Hammack. The name's a bit misleading; it covers a good amount of the material for a discrete structures course, including proofs.
  • An Active Introduction to Discrete Mathematics and Algorithms (V3.5) by Charles A. Cusack. A discrete math text based on parts of another author's writings.
  • Introduction to Higher Mathematics by Patrick Keef and David Guichard. Logic, proofs, functions, and relations, plus some number theory, 'cause ... why not?
  • How To Write Proofs by Larry W. Cusick. And that's what it covers.
• LaTeX resources:
  • I've got a resource page for LaTeX for those of you who would like to use it for formatting your answers to homework assignments. (Last updated: July 2021)
  • Don't want to install LaTeX on your computer? Try Overleaf, a free (for personal use) online LaTeX editor.
  • Want help formatting equations in LaTeX? You might like this tool: LaTeX equation demo by MyScript

Miscellaneous       (A place for stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else)

• Academic Dishonesty Quiz Slides How well do you know the UA Code of Academic Integrity? Probably not as well as you should. Try this quiz to find out!
• CS2023's CS Curriculum Guidelines A joint work of the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society. The Discrete Mathematics sub-section (topics and learning outcomes) can be found on pages 187-8.
• The Computer Science Lab Helpdesk has information on the department's computing equipment and services, including a link to change your CS account's password. You'll need to supply your NetID for access.

Completed Slides and Guided Notes

• Completed Lecture Slides. I will be posting my annotated-in-class lecture slides soon after the end of each class.
  
  
  • Click here to access the completed lecture slides.


• Guided Notes. What follows are links to the 'guided notes' (the yet-to-be-annotated slides) for the class. The idea is that you can print these and write your notes on them during lecture. These are formatted as PDFs with two slides per page, for ease of printing and to leave plenty of space for your notes.
  
  
  • Topic 1: Background
  • Topic 2: Logic
  • Topic 3: Quantifiers
  • Topic 4: Arguments
  • Topic 5: Direct Proofs of p -> q
  • Topic 6: Additional Set Concepts
  • Topic 7: Matrices
  • Topic 8: Relations
  • Topic 9: Functions
  • Topic 10: Indirect ("Contra") Proofs of p -> q
  • Topic 11: Integers
  • Topic 12: Sequences and Strings

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If you have any comments about this page, drop me a note at mccannl@acm.org