Click on a class day to go to that particular lecture or recitation. Due
dates for homeworks are set in bold. The due date
of the next homework blinks.
This course has the purpose of introducing first-year Computer Science
students to elements of formal logic as well as to the historical context in
which this discipline developed. As all subsequent courses in the CS
curriculum rely on students having mastered basic logical notions and skills,
it will test and enhance your preparation, thereby putting you in a better
position to succeed in the program. It will also help you understand and
appreciate how CS came about since Computer Science grew out of logic. The
specific knowledge and skills you will learn in is course include:
an enhanced ability to research topics, give presentations and write
technical prose.
some elementary logic.
some historical depth into Computer Science, mathematics and logic itself.
This course is open to Computer Science freshmen only.
It is my goal to make this course successful, stimulating and enjoyable. If
at any time you feel that the course is not meeting your expectations or you
want to provide feedback on how the course is progressing for you, please
. If you would like to provide
anonymous comments, please use the feedback form on the
course home page or slide a note under my door.
This is a 3 unit course. If it were a semester-long course, you
would be expected to dedicate an average of 3 hours a week to it for 14 weeks,
for a total of about 42 hours. However, this is a mini and it lasts only 7
weeks. You are still expected to spend 42 hours on it. This means your load
will be 6 hours a week in average.
Participation: 15% This includes:
Class participation: volunteer to answer questions asked to the
class
Class preparedness: you must have done the readings before coming
to class
Due on Saturdays at 11:59pm Doha time. Submit on blackboard.
Graded by the following Sunday. Evaluated as follows:
Your essay will be evaluated on the basis of content (does it
answers the question exhaustively?), form (is it well
structured, grammatical, etc?) and creativity
(are you stating the obvious?)
To encourage good work and integrity, the instructor may invite
students to his office to explain their solutions. Should this happen,
the students' explanations will become part of their grades for that
assignment.
Collaboration is regulated by the whiteboard policy: you can bounce
ideas about an assignment, but when it comes to typing it down for submission,
you are on your own - no notes, snapshots, etc., you can at most reconstruct
the reasoning from memory.
Class etiquette
Attendance is mandatory
Arrive on time: latecomers will not be allowed in class
The purpose is for the presenting students to develop their research and
presentation skills, and for the students in the audience to develop their
critiquing skills. Each presentation will last 20 minutes, and there will be
2 each recitation starting the third week of class. Presentations are
individual, unless the class turns out to be very popular in which case we
will have group presentations instead.
How do I go about a presentation?
Select your topic (see below) and a delivery date. Do so at least 2 weeks
in advance and in consultation with the instructor.
Research your topic by using the web, the library, or whatever will give
you a sufficient understanding. You are expected to be able to
explain this topic to your peers at a level where they can in turn
tell their friends and answer questions they may have. You are not
expected to become an expert :-)
Prepare a 15 minute presentation using PowerPoint or equivalent software.
Note that in 15 minutes you will not have time for many slides.
One week before you presentation date, submit a draft to the
instructor and get feedback. Finalize your slides.
On the selected date, give your presentation.
Both the instructor and your peers will give you feedback on your
presentation.
How are presentations evaluated?
We will be using a rubric to evaluate each
presentation. The rubric will be filled by both the instructor and the
students in the audience and will be used to give feedback.
For presenters:
Presentations account for 30% of the grade in the class, so it is very
important to prepare them very well.
For the audience:
The quality of the feedback will contribute to the 15% participation portion
of the grade.
As the semester progresses, presentations are expected to be better and better.
Example presentation topics
The following are some examples of presentation topics. You are encouraged to
propose others!
People
Gottfried Leibnitz
Gottlob Frege
Georg Cantor
Ludwig Wittgenstein
David Hilbert
Henri Pointcaré
Kurt Gödel
John von Neumann
Alan Turing
...
Logic
Modal logic
Hoare logic
Epistemic logic
Hilbert's program
...
Others
Set theory
Hilbert's problems
...
The following topics were presented in past editions of the course. It is
unlikely that the instructor will let you use them as presentation topics.
