There is a perceived barrier to mathematics: proofs. In this course we will try to convince you that this barrier is more frightening than prohibitive: most proofs are easy to understand if explained correctly, and often they are even fun. We provide an accompanied excursion in the “proof zoo” showing you examples of techniques of different kind applied to different topics.
We use some puzzles as examples, not because they are “practical”, but because discussing them we learn important reasoning and problem solving techniques that are useful. We hope you enjoy playing with the puzzles and inventing/understandings the proofs.
As prerequisites we assume only basic math (e.g., we expect you to know what is a square or how to add fractions), basic programming in python (functions, loops, recursion), common sense and curiosity. Our intended audience are all people that work or plan to work in IT, starting from motivated high school students.
From the lesson
Recursion and Induction
We'll discover two powerful methods of defining objects, proving concepts, and implementing programs — recursion and induction. These two methods are heavily used, in particular, in algorithms — for analysing correctness and running time of algorithms as well as for implementing efficient solutions. You will see that induction is as simple as falling dominos, but allows to prove complex things by decomposing them and moving step by step. You will learn how famous Gauss unexpectedly solved his teacher's problem intended to keep him busy the whole lesson in just two minutes, and in the end you will be able to prove his formula using induction. You will be able to generalize scary arithmetic exercises and then solve them easily using induction.