Discrete math with computers_3

Discrete Mathematics Using a Computer

John O’Donnell, Cordelia Hall

and Rex Page

Discrete Mathematics

Using a Computer

Second Edition

John O’Donnell, PhD

Cordelia Hall, PhD

Computing Science Department, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Rex Page, PhD

School of Computer Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005935334

ISBN-10: 1-84628-241-1

ISBN-13: 978-1-84628-241-6

Printed on acid-free paper

© Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006

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This book is dedicated to our parents.

through numerous paper-and-pencil exercises in applying logic to mathematical verification of hardware and software artifacts, gives students experience with the fundamental notions used by engineers who apply mechanized logic engines to the design of commercial computing systems. We believe these skills will be of increasing value in computer and software engineering, and our experience suggests that such skills contribute positively, even in the short run, to the ability of students to successfully design and implement software.

The text is organized in four parts: reasoning with equations, formal logic, set theory, and applications. The principle of induction is introduced early, for reasoning with equations, and applied to problems throughout the text. Reasoning with equations covers examples in several domains, including natural numbers of course, but also including sequences and sets. The logic portion of the text discusses two frameworks for formal reasoning: the natural deduction format of Gentzen and another syntax-based reasoning system based in Boolean algebra. Propositional logic is introduced first, then predicate logic, both in a natural deduction and Boolean algebra setting. Set theory discusses the usual basics, and illustrates many of the concepts by applying induction to define the integers. The set theoretic definitions of relations and functions are discussed, along with the usual properties that categorize them and allow them to be combined and manipulated. The applications portion of the text covers two extended examples, one concerning the design of a circuit for n-bit, ripple-carry addition, the other on the implementation of AVL tree operations. These augment the many, smaller examples that occur throughout the text and, together, help students understand how discrete mathematics contributes to the solution of di cult and important problems in computing.

A website for the text contains a collection of tools for experimenting with most of the concepts introduced. Included among these is a proof-checking system for propositional calculus. Students can use this system to make sure their proofs are correct and, more importantly, to experience the notion that proofs can be entirely formal and, therefore, useful in verifying the correctness of software and digital circuits. Other tools allow experimentation with set operations, Boolean formulas, and the notions of predicate calculus. These tools are expressed in Haskell, and the various operations for experimentation, including proofs, are expressed using Haskell syntax. In addition, Haskell is used to express the software and hardware designs that illustrate practical uses of logic and other aspects of discrete mathematics in computer science.

We feel that Haskell is an ideal notational choice for these examples because of its close a nity with customary algebraic notation. The compactness of software and hardware artifacts expressed in Haskell is another important advantage. Haskell serves both as a formal, mathematical notation, and as a practical and powerful programming language. This helps to strengthen the tight connection between mathematics and applications. Thus Haskell is used in the text on an equal footing with other mathematical notations. Students see Haskell in its role as a programming language, as well as a hardware description

language, and the emphasis in this book is on reasoning about programs and circuits, not just programming.

We hope that students will find the experience of learning about logic, sets, mathematical induction, and other concepts of discrete mathematics and its applications to computing problems interesting and enjoyable, and that they will be able to use these ideas in subsequent studies and professional work in computer science.

Software Tools for Discrete Mathematics

A central part of this book is the use of the computer to help learn the discrete mathematics. The software (which is free; see below) provides many facilities that aid the student in learning the material:

•Logic and set theory have many operators that are used to build mathematical expressions. The software allows the user to type in such expressions interactively and experiment with them.

•Predicate logic expressions with quantifiers can be expanded into propositional logic expressions, as long as the universe is finite and reasonably small. This makes the meaning of the quantifiers more concrete and helps the development of intuition.

•Students frequently misuse expressions in logic and set theory; a typical error that arises frequently is to write an expression that treats A B as a set rather than a Boolean value. The software tools will immediately flag such mistakes as type errors. Teaching experience shows that many students will have long-lasting misconceptions about basic notations without immediate feedback.

•A formal proof checker for natural deduction is provided. This allows students to find errors in their proofs before handing in exercises, and it also provides a quick and e ective way for the instructor to check the validity of large numbers of proofs. Furthermore, the automated proof checker underscores the nature of formal proof; vague or ill-formed proofs are not acceptable.

•Using a proof checker gives a deeper appreciation of the relationship between discrete mathematics and computer science. The experience of debugging a proof is much like debugging a computer program; the proof checker is itself a computer program (which the students can read if they wish to); proof checking software makes formal proof feasible for larger scale problems.

•The techniques of recursion and induction are applied directly and formally to function definitions that the student can execute.

The version of Haskell used in the book is Haskell98. This is a standard pure functional language with excellent support. Several implementations are freely available and they are supported on most major computers and operating systems. Students can install the software on their own machines, and universities can, of course, install it on laboratory computers.

The Software Tools for Discrete Mathematics package is a library of definitions that are loaded into Haskell. This package is available on the book web page (see Appendix B).

Haskell is an ideal language for teaching discrete mathematics. It o ers a powerful and concise expression language; many problems that would require writing a complete program of 10 to 100 lines of code in a language such as Pascal, C++, or Java can be written as a simple expression in Haskell, which is only a few lines long. This makes it possible to use Haskell interactively to experiment with the mathematical expressions of propositional logic, predicate logic, set theory, and relations. Such lightweight interactive exploration is infeasible in traditional imperative or object-oriented languages. Haskell is also well suited for complex applications, such as the proof checker used in Chapters 6 and 7, and the hardware description language used in Chapter 13.

It is assumed that the reader of the book has no knowledge in advance about Haskell or functional programming; everything that is needed is covered here. Because it is self-contained, this book can be used in any curriculum, regardless of what programming languages happen to be in use.

To the Student

It’s best to read this book actively with pencil and paper at hand. As you read, try out the examples yourself. It is especially important to try some of the exercises, and solutions to many of them appear in Appendix C. Don’t just read the exercise and then the solution—the benefit comes from trying to solve an exercise yourself, even if you don’t get it right. When you find your own solution, or if you get stuck, then compare your solution with the one in the book.

The web page for this book has additional information that will be useful as you study discrete mathematics:

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/ ˜jtod/discrete-mathematics/

Many of the exercises require the use of a computer with Haskell installed. The software is free, and it’s straightforward to download it and install on your own machine. See the book web page for information on obtaining the software.

A good way to improve your understanding of the material is to read about it at a more advanced level and also to learn about its application to real

problems. The Bibliography near the end of the book lists many good sources of information, and each chapter ends with some suggestions for further reading.

We wish you success with your studies in mathematics and computer science!

To the Instructor

This book is primarily intended for students of computer science, and applications of the mathematics to computing are stressed. No specific topics in computing are prerequisites, but some familiarity with elementary computer programming is assumed. The level is appropriate for courses in the first or second year of study. The contents of this book can be covered in a course of one semester.

The Instructor’s Guide gives suggestions for organising the course, solutions to the exercises, additional problems with solutions and other teaching resources. It is available online:

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/˜jtod /discrete-mathematics/instructors-guide/

Because the four parts of the text are largely independent of one another, topics may be introduced in the order that best suits the needs of particular instructors and students. The only serious restriction on ordering is that Part I (reasoning with equations and induction), Part II (logic), and Part III (Sets) must be covered before Part IV (applications). Reasoning with equations, logic, and set theory may be covered in any order. Chapter 1 describes Haskell, which is used as a mathematical notation at many points in the text. Readers may need to refer to Chapter 1 as they read other portions of the text, but it is probably better to discuss that material on as as-needed basis instead of spending a block of time on it in the beginning. The following graph shows the dependencies in more detail.

Applications

Chapters 12−13

A website accessible to instructors includes lesson plans, slides for lectures, homework problems, and exam questions for a course based on the text. Altogether, the website contains over 100 homework problems (with solutions), about 350 lecture slides, and more than 300 exam questions (with solutions). These materials are accessible on the web:

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/˜jtod /discrete-mathematics/instructors-guide/

Notation

Standard mathematical notation is used in this book when discussing mathematics: A B. A typewriter font is used for notations that are intended to be input to a computer: a ‘subset‘ b. For example, a general discussion in English might say that a theorem is true; that theorem might make a statement about the proposition True, and a Haskell program would use the constant True. The end of a proof is marked by a square box .

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following colleagues for their helpful feedback and encouragement during the process of writing this book: Tony Davie, Bill Findlay, Joy Goodman, Mark Harman, Greg Michaelson, Genesio Gomes da Cruz Neto, Thomas Rauber, Richard Reid, Gudula R¨unger, and Noel Winstanley. We would also like to thank the students at the University of Glasgow and the University of Michigan, who gave both of us experience teaching with preliminary versions of this material, and our editors, Karen Barker, Rosie Kemp, and Catherine Brett, for their help in producing this book. Finally, we would like to thank the students and instructors who made use of the first edition of this text, especially those who took the time to let us know what they liked and disliked about it. We have benefitted from their comments and have tried to apply their ideas in this revision. All remaining errors are ours alone.

John O’Donnell and Cordelia Hall

Glasgow, Scotland

Rex Page

Norman, Oklahoma

March 2006