This was the first day of Discrete Structures and we found out that our Professor may not be able to teach this class. So for now we are stuck with Mr. Haas. (HAHAHA) :) We talked about what the course content was and what we were looking to learn during this class. We went over some material in the book. This mainly consisted of some logic. We discussed what some of the basic logic terms are. This included the AND, OR, NAND, XOR and maybe some others that I can't remember because I do not have the book yet to refer to. So at this point Mr. Haas is going to be our teacher and this class involves applying math to the world of computing.
Until next time......
John Brizzee
This class was a very short class because we were told that from now on until further notice that our teacher was most likely going to remain Mr. Haas. The Professor that was supposed to come and teach the class will not be coming. This was pretty much all that was said other than the fact that the class time was going to change because we were changing teachers. We are now consolidating the class from two days to one. This day will be Tuesday at 9:50 am. That was it in a nutshell for that particular class session.
John Brizzee
This class session we spent some time setting up our journals. I in particular spent some time today trying to figure out what method that I would best be suited with. I decided that I would just keep it as simple as possible for time sake. We went over the course outline. But for the most part we worked on setting up our journal and learning how to connect to the class IRC channel.
John Brizzee
In this class session we talked about what Mr. Haas is expecting us to know from chapter 1 in the book. Which included 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5, and to the intro to proofs section. We talked about updating our journals. We then talked about the filenaming scheme and how we no longer have a set filename that each excercise has to be named. We just have to have the link to the answers in our journal. We also looked at Chapter 2 sections 2.1, 2.2 and were told to pick 4 questions from each section at random and do them. These questions should be covered in our journals.
John Brizzee
In this class session we talked about sets. A set in comprised of subsets and those subsets are comprised of a set of nothing and a null set. The difference between a null set and a set of nothing is that a set of nothing is a set that contains nothing. A null set is a set this is nothing. We talked about how P({0,a,{a},{{a}}}) is comprised of a number of sets. We talked about all the different ways one can look at sets. The assignment for next time is reading chapter 2 in the book.
John Brizzee
In this class session we talked about summations. This is represented by Epsilon. We specifically talked about the summation of j! from j = 0 to j = 4. The way that we calculated this was to take the summation of the factorials. We briefly talked about the product function. This function is the same as the summation but instead of adding the results of the functions you would multiply them. These couple of things are very similar to a for loop. Repeat some function from 0 to some number N and do something with the results. We then talked about the different combinations that can be with 8 bits. The number of combinations that we can have with 8 bits would be 256 or 2^8. Because it is base 2 or each bit location has 2 different possible choices. A 0 or a 1. We talked about holes and pigeons and how if there were 19 holes and 20 pigeons and all the pigeons were in a hole that there would be a hole that would have two pigeons in it. We jumped chapters from 2 to 5. We then got our assignment: 4 problems from 5.1, 4 problems from 5.2 and 4 problems from 5.3 and to read chapter 5.
John Brizzee
We spent some time this week going over some of the same stuff as we were looking at in the past. We also looked at some new stuff.
John Brizzee
This week we spent a session getting to know the new professor. We spent some time this week going over some of the same stuff as we were looking at in the past.
John Brizzee
This week I was still in the Caribbean!! Yes, it was a two week vacation! So shoot me!
John Brizzee
This class session was spent looking at algorithms. We looked at linear search algorithms and binary search algorithms. We talked about linear algorithms and how they can be used to search through a given set of data to find a greatest value or a finite value. This can be done by simply comparing the data one by one and saving the highest value from the set of data. The first time you search through you can just set the highest value to the current value being looked at or you can use zero.
We then looked at binary search algorithms to find a given value. This principle is based on the way that the data is cut down so to speak so that it can eliminate some of the data that does not need to be looked at. This can simply save compute cycles and be a bit more efficient. The way that this works is to assume that the data has been linearly arranged in ascending order and then split it into two halves. You then can compare the value that is being searched for to the highest value in the low set or the left hand set to find whether it is in the right hand set or the left hand set. If it is in the right hand set then you simply eliminate the left hand set so that it does not get looked at. This again will save compute cycles and is more efficient. Once the side is found that contains the value that is being looked for you can then repeat the process by splitting that set of data into two halves and continue the process until the value is found.
John Brizzee
This class session was devoted to continueing our look at algorithms and how they are used to sort and search through data sets. We looked at the Bubble sorting method and the Greedy method. We then talked a bit about how they are implemented in the programming environment and which one is more efficient at what particular job. This was mainly a continuation of last class just looking at different algorithms for sorting and searching.
John Brizzee
This class session was spent talking about the Big "O" notation. We spent some time looking at the different funtions of x that are part of the notation. We talked about the c and k variables and what they are in the functions. We also spent some time looking at the graphs for the most commonly used optimization algorithms.
John Brizzee
This class session was basically a continuation of the last class. We talked some more about the algorithms that are mentioned in the Big "O" notation.
John Brizzee
These two class sessions were spent talking about algorithms. We talked about more of the theory about the mathmatics of the algorithms. These algorithms were mentioned as part of the Big "O" notation. We talked about the algorithm that is used for converting base 10 to base 2. We talked about how to add, subtract and multiply base 2 math.
John Brizzee
This week was spent on looking at cryptography. This is the study of data encryption. We talked about some of the algorithms that are used or can be used to encrypt data. Data encryption is an essential to protect private information in the computer environment. I am currently looking to do a project of sorts on cryptography for the class. This project is supposed to take the place of a test. I am planning on implementing a simple AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm to encrypt a string of text that the user enters and then printing the cipher text and outputing possibly the key to the cipher. Then when the user prompt the program to decrypt the cipher text using the given key the program will reverse the algorithm to get the original input text. This is the plan at any rate.
We also started talking about Inductive mathimatics. This will be continued in the upcoming class sessions.
John Brizzee
This week was spent talking more about Inductive Mathimatics. I spent quite a bit of time working on the Cryptography project. I created a program that takes a letter and encrypts it using a hash algorithm and hash value. It then uses the opposite algorithm along with the hash value to decrypt the letter. It prints out all of this data. I have not yet implemented it to a whole string of letters yet but am working on it.
John Brizzee
This week's session was spent talking about mathematical induction and how it used in computing. We were also assigned a take home exam that is due 12/10/08. We were also given the material that is on the final exam. The final exam is Monday 12/15/08.
John Brizzee
This week's session was a continuation of talking about mathematical induction and how it is used in computing. I spent this week working on the take home exam and studying for the final exam. I am also turning in my cryptography project that was assigned before Thanksgiving break. This cryptography project uses a simple hashing algorithm to offset the character that a user inputs by manipulating the ASCII character codes. This program will encrypy using the hashing algorithm and a hash value and decrypt using the same hash value and reverse algorithm. This process will get you back to the original ASCII character code. This is a simple but effective way of explaining cryptography.
John Brizzee