In fact, one prominent MATHCOUNTS coach tells us that he spends nearly 50% of his preparation time with his students covering counting and probability topics, because of their importance in MATHCOUNTS contests. Students that do not have a discrete math background will be at a significant disadvantage in these contests. On harder high school contests, such as the AIME, the quantity of discrete math is even larger. Prominent math competitions, such as MATHCOUNTS (at the middle school level) and the American Mathematics Competitions (at the high school level), feature discrete math questions as a significant portion of their contests. Discrete math shows up on most middle and high school math contests. By contrast, discrete math, in particular counting and probability, allows students-even at the middle-school level-to very quickly explore non-trivial “real world” problems that are challenging and interesting. Many students’ complaint about traditional high school math-algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and the like-is What is this good for? The somewhat abstract nature of these subjects often turns off students. Discrete math is very much "real world" mathematics. Indeed, at most universities, a undergraduate-level course in discrete mathematics is a required part of pursuing a computer science degree. This means that in order to learn the fundamental algorithms used by computer programmers, students will need a solid background in these subjects. The mathematics of modern computer science is built almost entirely on discrete math, in particular combinatorics and graph theory. Discrete math is the mathematics of computing. Students who learn a significant quantity of discrete math before entering college will be at a significant advantage when taking undergraduate-level math courses. Discrete math is essential to college-level mathematics and beyond.ĭiscrete math - together with calculus and abstract algebra - is one of the core components of mathematics at the undergraduate level.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |