Tuesday, January 22, 2013

And Implies Or

Last week was mostly spent continuing to represent English statements in logical symbols, so, for example, A^B => AvB, as A and B is a subset of A or B.

However, A^B is clearly not the same thing as AvB. So, applying that, when the sign outside MP103 says "NO FOOD AND DRINKS", clearly they meant that I can have a can of coke or a yummy sandwich, just not both together. (Which is probably why some kind individual surreptitiously scratched out the "AND" and replaced it with "OR", which is probably what the original author intended.)

I am under the impression that so far, by covering the differences between 'and' and 'implies', we're secretly being introduced to truth tables (which are more clear about the difference, in my humble opinion) without a lot of the technical mumbo-jumbo that tends to make students' brains go haywire and shut down in panicked self-defense.

However, that did not stop one brave student's outcry at various counter-intuitive but logical claims, which was by far the most entertaining part of that particular lecture. 

No comments:

Post a Comment