Finishing With Proofs

Hello Readers,

            Recently in CSC165, we have finished learning about proofs. And although they are quite difficult, once you finish a proof correctly, it is really rewarding. Some different types of proofs we learned about were:

• Proving Existence (Proving that a set is non-empty)
• Proving a Claim About a Sequence (define a sequence and then prove something about that sequence)
• Contradiction, which is a special case of contrapositive. 
• Non-boolean Functions, expressing a proof about a function that returns a non-boolean value (e.g: number, integer)
• Proof By Cases (splitting you arguments to show all possibilities)
• Proving Something False (Prove the negation of the claim)
• Proof About Limits (you usually have to pick a certain value to make the proof work)

            There are definitely many other types of proofs but these are the main ones we have learned. Assignment 2 is all about proofs, and I hope to do well on that with the same partners I worked with last time. 

            Since finishing with proofs, we have started learning about sorting strategies. This concept is not new to me because I learned many different sorting algorithms in my grade 12 computer science class, so I'm hoping this will not be too challenging for me. I am quite confident with the different types of sorts, especially:

• Insertion Sort:  Each iteration, insertion sort removes one element from the data, inserts it where it belongs in the list and repeats until everything is sorted.
• Bubble Sort: Repeated checks each pair of adjacent items in the data and switches them if they are out of order, quite inefficient for big lists
• Selection Sort: Cycles through the entire list looking for the next item in the list and once it knows which item to take, places it in the correct position.

I do not know much about mergesort and quicksort, but I do know they are very efficient so I can't wait to learn about them! 

          CSC165 is still my most challenging class, but also still my favourite class. I will keep you updated on how the unit on sorts turns out and how I will be preparing for my next term test. Thanks for reading!