Saturday, 27 October 2012

Connecting some relationship with MAT240 and CSC236

       Only about a month and a half away from final exam, I am obsessed( well somewhat ) and fond of mathematical induction proof. While I am taking CSC236, I am also taking MAT240( it's been told to be harder than MAT223), Algebra I, and for some of the questions ( proof-type) that come up  in MAT240, I am trying to use induction proof. Although, I sometimes feel stupid of trying to use induction to the questions that does not require or can not be solved by induction proof. Last thursday, which is Oct 25th, I had a MAT240 term test and few hours before the test, I went to TA's office hour to ask some questions and one of the questions that I asked, I wasn't surprised but I felt like I was smarter than others when the TA used induction proof to solve one of the question. I was probably one of two or three students who understood what the TA was doing. During first half of CSC236, we were rigorosuly pushed to use  induction proof and I could say I was immune to induction, and I was able to solve one of the question from MAT240 term test very easily by using induction.
      While there are many proof techniques in mathematics, as of now, I prefer using induction the most, because the way it works out is very elegant. Moreover, I am able to confidently convince myself that the proof is correct and why it's correct. Although, there are more proof techniques to be learned in later years, I probably will choose mathematical induction proof as one of my most favourite method. However, it's sometimes discouraging to face that fact that induction proof is mostly used for proving about properties of natural numbers. As much as I want to use the induction techniques in MAT240, there really wasn't much of opportunities to use it, where I feel like I have almost perfected. Or it might be that I haven't yet to perfect it and less experienced to use induction proof in some of questions in MAT240. Yes, I really have a long way to go before perfecting the induction proof, but I will not resist myself from trying to use induction proof for some of the mathematical questions and then, I think I will become more mature computer scientist and mathematician.

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