Monday 3 November 2014

More about proofs

This post is a week late, my apologies!

My previous post dealt with proof structures and I'll pick up from there. While the proof structure is important for framing the problem and organising your approach, the guts of the proof is where the magic happens. And when we first started proofs in class, it felt like magic was involved. I found it difficult to follow Danny's thinking and keep up. It was like he was pulling the solution out of a hat. I started to feel anxious about proofs and I was worried I was falling behind. Luckily, working through proofs in the tutorials helped me understand why certain approaches make sense for a specific type of proof. But it was working on assignment 2 that really solidified my confidence that I can prove the types of statements we dealt with in class. I gave myself lots of time to do the assignment and make sure I understood each statement before starting the proof. Especially with the proofs about limits of a floor of x function, drawing the function helped my understanding.

I feel far less anxious about proofs than I did two weeks ago and, with midterm 2 coming up, I am confident that it will all be okay!


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