Thread: Need serious help w/ discrete math

I'm taking a stab at school again after a long stint in the military. Now Im in the higher level math and comp sci classes and I need serious help with discrete math. I understand next to nothing of it. The symbols, the proofs, all of it. I might as well be reading hieroglyphics because it all makes no sense to me. I go to the tutoring provided by the school and the guys there dont remember any of it cause they said it was too hard for them.

My question is, is there a book anyone recommends I can buy that kinda gets me going for someone very green to the material? The text provided taught by my professor is Rosen Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications 6th edition, and reading it is like reading a technical manual sometimes. The book provides very little background info, especially for majority of the exercises in the book.

Sorry to sound like an idiot but im desperate and need help!!

Thanks!

sorry if there is grammatical errors, im flustered and at the point of tears this stuff is driving me crazy

Hello SlapnutsGT

I'm a retired lecturer and recently put a whole lot of my notes on Set Theory and Logic on Wikibooks at

• Discrete mathematics/Set theory - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks
• and Discrete mathematics/Logic - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

which might help you get started on these two topics. It's fairly basic stuff, with lots of worked examples, exercises and answers. And it's free! So help yourself, if you think it's any use.

Grandad

Thanks for links I'll def. look back at them exam time! But, unfortunately these are two of the topics I fully understand. What is tripping me up is the terminalogy that is used, the symbols, big-Oh notation blows my mind, and mathematical induction (which I understand how to do the steps, but the excerises in this book just seem damn near impossible).

I go to class the prof. goes over the stuff and all the kids in the class just seem to fully understand it all and I feel out of place all the time, maybe its my age. When I graduated from high school only rich people had PCs, and my limited exposure to internet was only what I heard about it on TV.

Highest level math I've taken so far has only been pre-calculus, which is the requirement or the course, and I feel like nothing I learned there is helping here.

Thanks again for the links, these will come in handy, so they aren't in vain! I'm also gonna surf that site, never knew it existed!

Originally Posted by SlapnutsGT

Highest level math I've taken so far has only been pre-calculus, which is the requirement or the course, and I feel like nothing I learned there is helping here.

Someone has missed the boat with that prerequisite for a course in which Ken Rosen’s book is the text. You may consider doing the calculus series to gain mathematical maturity, which is certainly needed is a such a course.

Well, hammering away at the guys over at the tutoring department and ordered some more texts off Amazon, I should pull a decent grade out of the class I hope.

Hey, at least calculus should be easy after this haha

SlapnutsGT:

Glad I'm not the only one.
I've been allowed to take my masters degree at Heriot Watt University (Aberdeen) doing drilling engineering.
I haven't been to school in about 11 years, as I left and went straight offshore as a roughneck.

Good luck.

Grandad:

That is the one of the most helpful articles I've ever seen on the internet.
Thank you.