sixth

Before writing up this post, I was looking at the statistics. Apparently, I have had 95 page views. It just baffles me because blogs are so mundane, especially about academics. I'm having mixed feelings about such a discovery, knowing that there are people out there reading and analyzing my blog. Six blogs in total now, which is pretty much a failure since I'm expected to be averaging one a week but apparently I'm pulling two a week. I'm going try to sneak one more in before Friday!

Anyone else pumped that after this Friday, lectures are done for this semester? I am! 

Onto the juicy meat section of this blog; the part where I get graded. This third assignment due this Wednesday is such a nuisance in my opinion. I thought math was over for me last year, but apparently, limits and l'hopital never leave you.

According to the marking scheme, I'm supposed to devise out a plan to tackle on a problem of my choice using the approach suggest by Polya. Since it would be unwise to write up a plan to assignment three, I decided to use a problem from tutorial. 

I'm going to re-attempt to tackle question one from of the earliest tutorials (tutorial 2, question 5), since at the time I had such a bad time figuring it. Even now, I'm still unsure if I can approach it with the upmost confidence. The question is rewrite the following statement in symbols, 'some courses have several perquisites. 

1. Understanding the problem. I know what the question is asking me to do but clearly at the time, I had no idea how to even begin writing. Moreover, I wasn't even aware that we could use multiple variables to aid us.

2. Devise a plan. Whenever I notice the word 'some', it should come as a cue for me to use the "there exists" symbol. Since it is impossible from what I know to rewrite it with two variables, using a few more variables might be my best bet. So instead of using two abstract variables, x and y, I'm going to use x, y, z. 

3. Carry out the plan. (There exists a x in C, there exists and y in C, there exists a z in C, P(y,x) ^ P(z,x) ^ y != z

4. Looking back. Now that I have a solution that I deem to be correct, I should re-read through my answer to see if it corresponds to the question. In fact, translating my symbolic form structure to a sentence would be even more helpful. There exists three courses in courses. Of there three courses, y is a perquisite for x and z is a perquisite for x and course y is not the same course as course z. Basically, it shows that z and y are both perquisites for course x, but since neither of the courses are the same, it means that course x has more than one perquisites. In essence, it translates to the original question.

That was exhausting since working through question works so much faster in my head than typing it out. Nonetheless, writing down a plan is probably a better method than imagining it since you have something visual to rely on. Alright, this is all I'm writing for now! Bye!