ADAM CLEMENTS – SME 430 – Discussion Post #12 – 4/27/2010

Complete the readings for this week and then post your reflections to the prompts below:

Sketch 24

• How is mathematics and logic related?

o Since the logical syllogisms of Aristotle in the 4th century B.C., mathematics has
tried to integrate logic and math by reducing human reason to a mechanical
process.
o Leibniz set out to integrate logic and math. He wanted his system to work
“mechanically” according to a simple set of rules for deriving new statements
from ones already known, starting with only a few basic logical assumptions.
• Give an example of the equivalence not (P and Q) <-> not (P) or not (Q)
o If it is not raining and cloudy, then it is not raining or it is not cloudy.
• Give an example of the equivalence not (P or Q) <-> not (P) and not (Q)
o If it is not raining or cloudy, then it is not raining and not cloudy.
• Explain in your own words why these two rules are true. You can draw upon the
examples you used in your explanations.
o Using the examples above, when it is not raining and cloudy, it is either not
raining or not cloudy, meaning that one of them or both holds true. When it is not
raining or cloudy, then it is inclusive of both ideas so that it is not raining and it is
not cloudy, meaning that both of them hold true.
• What’s the difference between an exclusive “or” as opposed to an inclusive “or”.
o Exclusive is one or the other.
o Inclusive is one or the other or both.

Sketch 25

• If we wanted to see if every student in our class had a desk to sit in, how could we find
out besides counting the number of students and counting the number of desks?
o Make a mapping. Map a student to a desk and if all the students get mapped to a
desk, one to one, then you have enough desks.
• How did society react to the idea of infinity?
o Cantor’s set-theoretic treatment of infinity generated heated opposition form some
of his foremost contemporaries, but overall his work was well received in many
parts of the mathematical community.
o It generated considerable interest among neo-Thomist philosophers.
o The associated it with religion, in that God, being all-knowing, must know all
numbers, hence, not only do all the natural numbers actually exist in the mind of
God, but so do all rationals, all infinite decimals, and so forth.
• Do you think the size of the set of odd numbers is the same as the size of the set of even
numbers? Support your claim with some of Cantor’s ideas. (Can you create a mapping
from each even number to an odd number?)
o They are the same, infinitely large.
 1,3,5,7,9….
 2,4,6,8,10….