The Syllabus

Instructor:

M. Randall Holmes

Office and Hours:

My office is Math/Geology 240A. I am in my office most of the working day (for me 7:40 am-4:30 pm Monday-Friday). Of course I do eat lunch and I am sometimes elsewhere for other reasons. I will talk to students at almost any time when I am in the office; official office hours are 10:40-11:30 am MTWF (the hour after class) and 9:40-10:40 am Th (the hour we would meet if we met on Thursdays).

Telephone, E-mail and Internet:

My office phone is 426-3011. My home number is 345-2899; please do not call after 8:30 pm any night or between 6 pm Friday and noon Sunday. My e-mail address is holmes@math.boisestate.edu; I read my e-mail constantly and respond promptly. My web page (on which there will be some course related stuff) is http://math.boisestate.edu/$\sim$holmes.

Title of Course:

Discrete and Foundational Mathematics II.

Time and Place:

9:40-10:30 am, MTWF, in MG 118.

Textbook:

Steve Grantham's Discrete and Foundational Mathematics, summer 1999 version. This is also the book for M187. There are considerable differences from earlier versions.

Homework:

Homework assignments will be given once or twice weekly. Normally, homework will be due one week from the day it is assigned. I will answer questions (guardedly) in class and (more freely) in my office while you are working on it. Clear writing in English is important in this class! You will be asked to present some of your homework solutions at the board in class. Your homework grade will count as half of your course grade.

There will be some computer lab work in this course. It will count as homework. Any students who do not have computer accounts will receive them in time for the first lab.

Exams:

I expect to give three hour exams in class and a final exam. Some of these exams may have a ``take-home'' component. Each hour exam will count for 20% of your total test grade, and the final will count as 40% of your total test grade; your total test grade will count as the other half of your course grade. Projected exam dates: February 18, March 24, April 28. These are all Fridays. Please note that one of these is the Friday before spring break. If there is a take-home component to the final, it will be distributed on April 21. For the date and time of the final exam, see the next item.

Final Examination:

A final examination is scheduled for May 8, 2000, 10:30 am-12:30 pm. This examination will be cumulative. If it has a take-home component, this will be distributed at least 2 weeks before classes end (so you have time to work on it outside ``dead week'') and will be due at the in-class exam.

Aims of the Course:

My aims in this class are two-fold: I want to teach an acceptable standard of both formal and semi-formal proof (that's the ``foundational'' part in my mind) and teach some discrete mathematics content. We will use some relatively easy and familiar discrete mathematics content as raw material for learning our techniques of proof (thus making the easy more difficult$\ldots$); we will also see some intrinsically interesting discrete math content later in the course.

Since I have not taught this course before (I believe that this is just the second time that it has been offered), I am making no predictions in this syllabus about what material we will cover or how fast. If there is material that you would like to see in the course, you might want to approach me about it!

Format of the Course:

I would like to spend less time on my feet than usual. I will require students to present some of their homework at the board. I will invite students to attempt work at the board on questions that arise in class. When I am on my feet, I will first answer questions about homework, then lecture.

I will endeavour to indicate sections of the book relevant to each lecture and to provide lecture notes of my own, which I will put on my web page. Criticism of the book (which does contain typos) and of my lecture notes will be gratefully received!

Computer Content:

I am planning to introduce the Watson theorem prover, a tool for automated reasoning which I have developed as part of my research program, as a component of the course (in the propositional and predicate logic reasoning section of the course).

There are various contexts in which a programming project might be appropriate in this course. A student who presents a reasonable proposal for a project may have the opportunity to have it count for a percentage not to exceed 20% of the total grade.