Sunday, August 1, 2010

how to prove it - a retrospection

I just finished working through velleman's how to prove it. All of my notes and solution to exercises can be found here. After reading it, here is what I think.

What I expected before I started reading it?
I expected to learn how mathematicians *think* when they encounter a conjecture. And, hoped that this would make it easy for me to read/understand any proof based books like cormen et al.

What I found?
Essential logic theory, A *solid* understanding of the abstract *structures* used in proofs and how these structures come from logic. You learn set, relations and functions for free as side effects :)

It helped a lot to have some understanding of (propositional)logic and quantifiers before I started reading this book. After working through this book when you will look at any proof, you will first understand the abstract structure behind the proof(in fact you'll just get it without even thinking about it) and then understand the specific details of the particular proof.

In short, I'm glad I read it. Thanks to Ravi for pointing me to it.

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Hey himanshu!

    I don't see any problems! Could you pls post link for each chapter. Or u can email me palak166@gmail.com

    Thanks,
    Palak

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  3. Hey himanshu!

    I don't see any problems! Could you pls post link for each chapter. Or u can email me palak166@gmail.com

    Thanks,
    Palak

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://technotes-himanshu.blogspot.in/search/label/htpi

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  4. Hey himanshu could you post the solutions to chapter 3 or even chapter 2?

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    Replies
    1. ch-1 to ch-6 solutions are already posted in separate posts, check all(older) posts in http://technotes-himanshu.blogspot.in/search/label/htpi

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    2. Ok i've seen them, great work man why don't you compile it into a pdf and post it to the web, i've been scouring the web for this stuff all day!!!

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  5. Hey, do you have finished the exercises before chapter 5?

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  6. Did the book meet your original expectation?

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  7. hi, do you finish the chapter 7 ?

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  8. hi, when i go to solutions I can only see them for chapter 6

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