Sec. 7, 4.5-4.6, and 5.1 Due January 30

The first two sections seemed relatively similar to what has been covered in earlier chapters.  It was simply taking properties that we applied to statements P and Q and then having them apply in the case of sets.  5.1 seems easy enough.  You just find one example that disproves the given result and you're finished.  The only difficulty I foresee having is finding out what example to choose.  It seems as if it could be fairly time consuming simply guessing and then checking.

Sec. 7, 4.3-4.4 Due January 27

Section 4.3 was fairly easy and straight forward.  In section 4.4 I failed to understand why the venn diagram would not be able to constitute a proof.  It seemed much simpler.  The hardcore proof works but leads to confusion as it is just a large block of text rather than a few circles with different bits shaded in.
On my homework assignments it takes me roughly two hours to complete the paper homework and an additional half hour for the reading and blogging.  The reading and lecture before the homework has been sufficient up to this point.
The most beneficial thing from the class thus far is seeing all the material twice; once when I read and the second time in class.
The main thing to make the class better for me would be to improve with LaTeX.  The assignment I turned in Wednesday using it took me a ridiculously long time.

Sec. 7, 4.1-4.2 due January 25

The most difficult part was understanding the notation.  I think I've a decent grasp of it, but stressing it in class would go a long way to allowing me to fully understand it.  I'm still struggling to see n | (a-b) as "a is congruent to b modulo n.  Aside from this it seems a fairly straight forward extension of the sections from the previous class period.

Sec. 7, 3.4-3.5 due January 23

Proof by cases seems relatively straight forward.  The only bit that gave me any pause when the book started talking about a proof without loss of generality. This can be used when the proofs necessary to do the proof by cases are fairly similar.  It seems to me that there should be some exception that would make this method no longer functional.  It seems generally safer to do all of the cases, even though it is slightly more time consuming.

Sec. 7, 3.1-3.3 Due January 20th

The most difficult thing for me to follow was the books use of a lemma in a proof.  The proof was to veryify for integers that if 5x-7 were odd, then 9x+2 was even.  The lemma used was that if 5x-7 is odd then x is even.  I failed to understand were they pulled x being even from, and how it was known that this would assist in the proof.  Aside from that I found proofs by contrapositive to be interesting.  They made sense and appear to be useful in many cases.

Sec. 7, 0 (pgs 5-12), due January 18

Chapter 0 was not terribly difficult.  Some of the suggestions I had never though of before (such as not starting a statement with a symbol).  The main difficulty I'm currently having is in installing LaTeX.  This is the focus of Wednesday's class, so hopefully my troubles will be resolved then.

Sec. 7, 2.9-2.10, due January 13

Learning the various fundamental logical equivalencies is both the most difficult portion of the reading, as well as the most useful.  Memorizing them will take time, but when this is accomplished it will mean less and less of truth tables (which while not the most horrible thing, are time consuming and tedious to create).

Sec. 7, 2.5-2.8, due January 11

The most difficult portion of the section was the bit on logical equivalence.  Of everything in the reading thus far this has been the seemingly most convoluted.
The most helpful part of the section was just the author taking the mathematical symbols and writing it as it would appear in plain English.

Sec. 7, 2.1-2.4, Due January 9

From the sections the most difficult thing was simply learning all of the new notation that I had no previous exposure to.
It is fairly cool to be reintroducing such common things as functions, but the different approach gives a deeper understanding of such things.

Sec. 7, 1.1-1.6, due January 6

The most difficult portion of the text was distinguishing between elements and subsets.  At times it became rather confusing as to which was which.  The most useful bit of the sections was in using a Venn diagram in order to evaluate set operations.

Introduction Sec. 7, due on January 6th

I am currently a first year student at BYU.  I have yet to declare a major, but will have math as a minor at the very least.  I've passed Math 112 through AP credit, and have finished Math 113 last semester.  I'm taking the class as it is a requirement for a math minor/major.  The most effective math teacher I've had to date was for AP calculus.  The main thing that worked for me was the shear number of examples and practice problems that were given in order to understand a concept.  As for myself I am currently training for the Salt Lake City Marathon in April.