WEEK 10

Nearing the end of the semester, things are getting a bit hectic. Assignments are piling up in addition with all the studying we have to do for our other courses. As a result, I haven't been able to focus on this course as much as I hoped. Regarding the material, however, I feel like I am starting to understand Big-O and Big-Omega. The proofs we worked on in class seem to be getting simpler, but I will probably still need a lot of practice. We also got our test results back and I was extremely disappointed when I saw my mark. I truly thought that I did well on this test. I have yet to pick up my test to see what went wrong, but I intend to look at it very, very carefully to ensure I won't make those mistakes again on the final exam. Lastly, we are expected to get our third and final assignment in this course. I intend to get all my assignments for my other courses done and to strictly concentrate on this final assignment. I probably will not be on here for the next week due to studying, but I hope to make time for my final post. Until then, wish me luck! (Like, a lot of luck)

WEEK 9

9 down, 3 to go. Not only this course, but the entire semester has been moving by so quickly. This week felt pretty quick as well. We had our second Term Test and overall, it was straightforward. I feel like I did better on this test than I did the previous test. I had trouble proving the second claim. It involved using the definition of the floor of a function and disproving a conjunction. I knew that when disproving a claim, you have to negate it. Since it was a conjunction, De Morgan's Law had to be used, which resulted in a disjunction. With disjunctions, proof by cases had to be used. This was all I was able to come up with, so I was only able to write the structure. I'm hoping that I get a better mark than last time.

This week was also the due date for our second assignment. I felt fairly confident handing in the assignment, but when the solutions were posted, I realized that I had proved 2 false statements and falsified 1 statement. I'm truly hoping that I get part marks for my reasoning. As for the material covered, we just covered more Big O functions. I am getting a little more comfortable with Big O and Big Omega, but like proofs, I still need more practice. I think like all the material covered so far, the assignment will provide me with some clarification on certain aspects. Wish me luck for the next 3 weeks!

WEEK 8

With midterm week over, I was able to catch up on my sleep and actually stayed up during my lecture. This week, we covered the amount of time / number of steps taken for linear search and insertion sort, and the worst case scenarios of insertion sort - both upper and lower bound. Counting the number of steps for linear search was simple. When it came to looking at the upper and lower bound of insertion sort, things became much more confusing. However, as we went through it, the steps of proving each bound made sense. I realized that all of the steps would require creative and logical thinking, which I lack. Overall, the material was reasonable but I will need to look at it quite often.

In addition to this week's lecture, I have been working on the assignment. This assignment was a bit more challenging than the first, but it provided me with a lot of practice with proofs. Some of the claims, particularly Claim 1.2 and 1.3, were difficult to prove. These claims involved the formal definition of a limit. I'm not in MAT137 so I'm not that familiar with it. However, with the help of Prof. Heap and Prof. Zhang, I was able to prove each claim - at least I think I did. Hopefully I will do well on this assignment.