Does anyone else have a tough time with proofs? Most of my problem solving thus far has relied on intuition rather than explicit steps. In fact, most of the time if i actually try to trace my thought process i end up getting frustrated because i cant properly figure out why the hell what ive done works. I'd like to think its not a fluke because I breezed through calculus with this intuition but now that I'm taking courses where proofs are emphasized more heavily I have no clue wtf to do.
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>>8669991
>calculus
>intuition
here's what you need to do: trash your everything-nice-works-because-all-nice-conditions-are-implicit" "intuition" and try to get some real intuition based on experience. what subject are you having problems with?
Right now im taking linear algebra and diff eq. The proofs in linear are giving me quite a bit of trouble, diff eq im not having too much trouble with. I'm not sure how else to put it. Intuition probably isnt the right word - its more appropriate to say that I havnt had any trouble with maths up until now :/
>>8670022
im assuming the diff eq class is a continuation of calculus, aka shitty and not much to it
i'll be blunt on what's going on: you haven't done any real math up until now. pick up a good book. hoffman & kunze's linear algebra is a masterpiece, and I didn't have much trouble picking it up when I was starting out. make no mistake: you're not supposed to be able to cruise through it. you're supposed to do it with hard work and effort, but you'll hopefully find it rewarding.
you need to learn how to do the computations and think rigorously before you start thinking "intuitively" again, this time correctly
>>8669991
Surrender your intuition and start from scratch. Learn how to form arguments and observe the tricks that are commonly used. Once you've picked enough of this up, you'll gain an intuition for rigor. If this doesn't happen, you're not cut out for math. You should be able to argue your way through abstract messes, not really knowing what's actually going on other than the logic you're employing.
I like proof by construction best, it's the
most satisfying: "prove this can be done"
"here, I did it, Q-fckn-ED"
PBC is sometimes too hard to do, in which
case I like proof by contradiction: "X implies Y"
yeah, suppose not, and find implications,
needing only one that contradicts known facts,
in which case the supposition is false, QED
I had a similar thing in accounting. My early courses I just blew through like I had already aced the course. Then advanced accounting classes hit that really had no logic to why that things were done a certain way. It really slowed me down.
Your university probably has an "intro to proofs" esque class. I'm also guessing you're not an actual math major but an engineer of sorts, in which case I'd say don't bother.
Otherwise, you'd best take an intro to proofs course or read a book like How to Prove It or something like that.
>>8669991
Hard to communicate anything of value if you can't show proofs.
>>8669991
You have to learn some fundamental logic. Like checking truth tables and shit. Then move on to proving statements with quantifiers and learn what is considered a valid proof.
Once you learn the basic rules of what a proof even is, you can start playing with different strategies or being clever.
Propositional Logic -> Basic Quantifier stuff -> Basic Number theory is a good projection