Week 2

This is my course log, or SLOG, where I will be recording the things I learn  and challenges I encounter in CSC 165.

This week I learned about universal and existential claims. A universal claim is a statement about every element of a set, and an existential claim states that at least one element of a set has a given property. I found it interesting to logically analyze statements made in plain English to identify precisely what claims are being made. I also learned how to prove or disprove these kinds of statements.

This is the first course I have taken that has explored set theory in detail. I have previously used arrays and lists when writing programs, which are a similar concept, but at first I was confused by the notation used in class. I found it useful to refer to the section on set theory and notation in chapter 1 of the course notes. Now, when I encounter set notation, I first make sure I understand the meaning in English before continuing.