WEEK 1

INTRODUCTION TO
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS

CS-6105 Discrete Mathematics

WEEK 1 :INTRODUCTION TO DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Module Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this module, a student is able to:

1. Be introduced to Discrete Math and its scope of learning.
2. Familiarize with the applications and fundamentals of discrete
Mathematics.
3. Understand and solve given samples in the course module.
Topics Covered

• Introduction to Discrete Math

• Mathematical Statements
INTRODUCTION TO
-Atomic and Molecular Statements
• Implications
DISCRETE
- Converse
- Contrapositive MATHEMATICS
Introduction to Discrete Mathematics

Discrete mathematics is the study

of mathematical structures that are
countable or otherwise distinct and
separable.

In this course we will study four main topics:

combinatorics (the theory of ways things
combine; in particular, how to count these
ways), sequences, symbolic logic, and graph
theory

Erdos, Father of Discrete Mathematics

Mathematical Statements
In order to do mathematics, we must be able to talk and write about
mathematics. Perhaps your experience with mathematics so far has
mostly involved finding answers to problems. As we embark towards
more advanced and abstract mathematics, writing will play a more
prominent role in the mathematical process. Communication in
mathematics requires more precision than many other subjects, and thus
we should take a few pages here to consider the basic building blocks:
mathematical statements.
Atomic and Molecular Statements

A statement is any declarative sentence which is either true or false. A

statement is atomic if it cannot be divided into smaller statements,
otherwise it is called molecular.

You can build more complicated (molecular) statements out of simpler

(atomic or molecular) ones using logical connectives.
 Atomic and Molecular Statements
Note that we can break this down into two smaller statements. The two shorter statements
are connected by an “and.” We will consider 5 connectives: “and” (Sam is a man and Chris is a
woman), “or” (Sam is a man or Chris is a woman), “if. . . , then. . . ” (if Sam is a man, then Chris is a
woman), “if and only if” (Sam is a man if and only if Chris is a woman), and “not” (Sam is not a man).
The first four are called binary connectives (because they connect two statements) while “not” is an
example of a unary connective (since it applies to a single statement).

These molecular statements are of course still statements, so they must be either true or
false. The absolutely key observation here is that which truth value the molecular statement
achieves is completely determined by the type of connective and the truth values of the parts. We do
not need to know what the parts actually say, only whether those parts are true or false. So to
analyze logical connectives, it is enough to consider propositional variables (sometimes called
sentential variables), usually capital letters in the middle of the alphabet: P, Q, R, S, . . .. We think of
these as standing in for (usually atomic) statements, but there are only two values the variables can
achieve: true or false. We also have symbols for the logical connectives: ∧, ∨, →, ↔, ¬
Logical Connectives
Truth Values for Connectives
The truth value of a statement is determined by the truth value(s) of its part(s), depending on
the connectives:
Implications
Converse and Contrapositive
END