About Discrete Structure
This course introduces students to the principles and applications of discrete structure in the field of computer science. The topics that are covered in this course are set theory, proof techniques, relations, functions, recurrence relations, counting methods, graph theory, trees and finite Automata. At the end of the course, the students should be able to use set theory, relations and functions to solve computer science problems, analyze and solve problems using recurrence relations and counting methods, apply graph theory and trees in real world problems and use deterministic finite Automata, finite state machines to model electronic devices and problems.
Reference Video
Reference Video
Road to Finals
Plans to prepare for Discrete Structure Final Exam on 1st January 2020
Complete Past Year 2016/17, 2017/18
Complete Past Year 2018/19 and do final revision for Set Theory, Graph Theory, DFA, and FSM
Complete entire Revision of C4 (Graph Theory) and C5 (Finite Automata)
Let's Reflect
RSS
The calculus sequence taught in this subject dealt with real-valued functions very well. Since the real numbers are continuous, this mostly left areas of math that dealt with discrete as opposed to continuous sets of values. For example, logic deals with two values, true (1) and false (0). Number theory deals with integers. Here are some topics covered in Discrete Structure and how it is important to me as a computer science student ;
1) Set theory. This is given that we mostly think of a set as an unsorted collection of unique objects. One fun and important topic in set theory is that some infinite sets are bigger than others. So, it cultivate my logical thinking to sort the elements in the set.
3) Combinations and Relations. This chapter explains about the natural ways to associate objects of various set. This topic also covers relations, digraphs, matrices of relation.
4) Recurrence relations and recursion. Recursion is a fascinating topic, and its importance in mathematics cannot be overstated. a recurrence relation is an equation that recursively defines a sequence or multidimensional array of values, once one or more initial terms are given.
5) Graph Theory. So many aspects of real life can be modeled with graphs that graph theory explains. graph theory is the study of graphs, which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of vertices (also called nodes or points) which are connected by edges
6) Tree theory. A tree is an undirected graph in which any two vertices are connected by exactly one path, or equivalently a connected a cyclic undirected graph.
In many ways Discrete Mathematics contains essentials almost every aspect of Computer Science.
As I have expected to learn fundamentals and important concepts in computer mathematics, this subject introduces me to logics behind mathematics that involve computers. I'm able to see the relation between mathematics and its influence towards operations in computer. A few of many things that I have learnt in this subject ;
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Sets
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Logic
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Number Theory
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Proofs
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Functions
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Relations
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Statistics and Combinations
The first time I go through the subject content and topics covered in this subject, I realized this subject is more alike computer mathematics. The topics like set theory, functions and relations stimulate students' logical thinking ability and work on their decision making skills based on the desired output. The subject involves probability and set theory which are basics in computer science and will be essential in developing software programs in the future.