1/30:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Students presented their final papers.
Assignment: None.
1/29:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Went over first half of Chapter 14 and explained the proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.
Assignment: Final paper due tomorrow.
1/25:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Went over pages 231 through end of chapter.
Assignment: Read first half of Chapter 14. Final paper due on January 30.
1/24:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Went over pages 199-229.
Assignment: Read and journal pages 231-250. Start working on your final paper.
1/23:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Demonstrated a Python program that solves Towersof Hanoi. Reviewed Ganto's Ax. Explained truth tables that were mentioned on page 191. Completed Chapter 7.
Assignment: Read and journal pages 199-218. Start working on your final paper.
1/22:
Handouts: None.
Material covered:
1. You cannot use an encyclopedia as a non-Internet reference for your final paper.
2. Some of your journals are too short (some have 5 lines just of heading). A page that meets the criteria on the syllabus would have 21 lines in it. Your journals from this point on will only count if they have at least 15 lines of text (excluding the heading such as name, title, date, course, etc.).
3. See home page for description of final paper.
Today the Towers of Hanoi problem was demonstrated, along with its analogy to Gray code and the Chinese ring puzzle. Explained the function INT(X), Lucas numbers, Gplot with its infinite infinities, copies and sameness and how that relates to recursion and Escher's work, programming/loops/loops within loops, demonstrated Python programs that do what he discusses on page 149 regarding prime numbers, briefly discussed recursion in chess programs,and mentioned Hofstadter's Law. Did pages 177-190.
Assignment: Read and journal pages 188-197. Start working on your final paper.
1/18:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Reviewed pages 127-138. Gave examples of stacks, plus the fact that the conversations on page 127 would be better with a queue. Showed an example of RTN for the language Pascal (also called BNF, Backus-Naur Form). Exemplified a derivation of the phrase "the strange bagels that the purple cow without horns gobbled" using the RTN on page 132. Discussed the Fibonacci numers via the best website on that topic, Dr. Rob Knott's Fibonacci website as well as the website for the human face. Did an in-class exercise on creating the spiral for the nautilus shell via squares whose sides are Fibonacci numbers.
Assignment: Read 177-187. Write your weekly paper.
1/17:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Discussed Little Harmonic Labyrinth -- wishes about wishes, statements about statements about numbers, stories within stories, etc. Played Bach's Kleines Harmonisches Labyrinth (Little Harmonic Labyrinth) again, but this time with a tuner to demonstrate the modulation. Discussed tonality and how if a piece is in a particular key, you expect resolution in that key; exemplified this using random hymns from The Methodist Hymnal ("Fuzzy Cats Get Dirty After Every Bath"). Demonstrated a Python program that computes factorials using recursion. Discussed recursion as related to the reading.
Assignment: Read and journal pages 127 through the middle of page 138.
1/16:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Discussed the retrograde inversion. Students presented their papers. Discussed comments and questions on last week's journals. Played Bach's Kleines Harmonisches Labyrinth (Little Harmonic Labyrinth).
Assignment: Read (if you haven
t already) Little Harmonic Labyrinth (pages 103-126).
1/11:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Pages 91-102.
Assignment: Read Little Harmonic Labyrinth (pages 103-126); paper due Tuesday.
1/10:
Handouts: Via email Bach's Retrograde Inversion of his name (B-A-C-H), and the explanation of Bach's discovery of the chromatic scale making all notes equally spaced (tuning A is 440 Hz, continue to multiply by the twelfth root of 2, and when you get to the next octave, A is 880 Hz.
Material covered: Pages 75-middle of page 91.
Assignment: Read and journal the middle of page 91 through page 102.
1/9:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Watched the movie The DaVinci Code.
Assignment: List and attempt to explain all of the puzzles and codes in the movie, and turn this in to me via the email according to the journal guidelines by 9 AM on 1/10.
1/8:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Students presented their papers/skits: The Three-Part Dialog, Gödel/Escher/Bach/Carroll/Babbage bios, paradoxes, Zeno, the music for a canon based on Pachelbel's Fughetta in C Major. Covered pages 61-74. Responded to questions from last week's journals.
Assignment: Read and journal pages 75-middle of page 91.
1/5:
Handouts: None.
Material covered: Pages 43-53.
Assignment: Read pages 61-74 and write your weekly paper.
1/4:
Handouts: Formal language theory exercises.
Material covered: Pages 29-41. Classroom exercises: Demonstrated how to make a Mobius strip. Did the formal language theory exercises.
Assignment: Read and journal pages 43-60.
1/3:
Handouts: Sheet music for "Good King Wenceslas."
Material covered: Pages 16-28. Classroom exercise: Write a canon based on "Good King Wenceslas" and the instructions on page 9.
Assignment: Read and journal pages 29-41.
1/2:
Handouts: Syllabus.
Material covered: Syllabus; Introduction through page 15.
Assignment: Read pages 3-28.
