Math 222-Foundations
Instructor: Noah Aydin
Office: RBH 319
Phone: 5674
E-mail: aydinn
Office hours: M: 10-11; T: 3-4, W: 2-3 F: 10-11, M*: 10:10-12 (* Foundations Workshop) and by appointment.
Classroom: RBH 213
Class Meeting Times: MWF 10:10-11
Text: Chapter Zero, by Carol Schumacher, 2nd ed, Addison Wesley.
The list of known errors in the textbook
Course Description: The central purpose of this course is to introduce you to careful use of language in the context of mathematical reasoning and proof. The course is meant to make you think about mathematics in a completely new way, in a more mature way. It should set you on the path to becoming a mathematical producer rather than mathematical consumer. As part of this venture, we will discuss the basic principles of logic and various proof techniques, applying them in the context of the essential building blocks of mathematical structures: sets, relations (including orderings and equivalence relations), functions, etc. While the class will introduce you to some new mathematics, the emphasis of the course is on process rather than content. I rarely lecture; you and your fellow students will prove virtually all the theorems yourselves and present them to each other in a seminar setting. Thus I hope that the most important lines of communication will be between students rather than instructor to student as is the case in many classes.