Discrete Mathematics?

I'm currently taking a discrete mathematics course (as required for my CS degree), and I'm not really seeing the practical uses of it. We also have to do programming assignments in Maple, and I don't really see the use of that, either.

Could someone give me some insight on this?

 

Depending on the exact content of your course... well, discrete maths usually covers things like Boolean logic, which is, y'know, the ultimate basis upon which computers operate, so kinda handy to know. Graph theory? AI pathfinding for one thing, among many others. Game theory should be obvious enough. Set theory is useful in graphics, as is anything geometric you might be covering. Probability is useful in all kinds of different games. So, yeah, depending on your course, there's a lot of application for it.

Maple? Never heard of it, sorry...

 

Maple is an alternative to Mathematica.

They are both tools to 'do' 'maths' - for an incredibly large range of values of 'do ' and 'maths'.

They are pretty powerful tools and can be used in a large range of tasks e.g. visualisation, problem solving, theorem proving, statistical analysis.

The single most remarkable thing about them is that they turned mathematics from a solely theoretical science into a experimental science.

 

http://www.maplesoft.com/ if its the one im thinking of. Geared towards business applications. Only time I have seen it used was in last job as a sort of modelling software. But I gather there is a whole suite of math-related products.

Bear in mind CS courses are designed to give you a broader base, not career-specific learning. So while it might not be particulary useful in specific terms, the process of going through from start to finish is.

 

IMHO I've never met anyone working on game programming who knew too much mathematics.

When I was watching my lecturer draw cross products and dot products I was thinking "what the hell is that nonsense?". Then a few years into the game industry I find myself needing to calculate normals to planes and bounce balls of walls, and distances to planes and facing directions.

I'm not saying all you will learn will be useful, but I think you will be surprised at the number of times it is.

 

Two things that I've used in my career first encountered in a discrete math course:

* How floating point numbers work, and the pitfalls of doing calculations with them. If you ever go anywhere near physics code, this is essential knowledge.
* Function approximation. In particular, the discrete math course helped make the later graphics courses easier to understand. For example, working with splines.

 

The practical uses of discrete mathematics is having a framework with which to break down problems that need to be explained to a computer in the form of a program. I personally think that discrete maths is an essential knowledge for any programmer.

Not sure how in-depth your course will be going, but I would suggest that you also get to grips with Set Theory, as they are practically interdependent.

When I was reading CS we used Matlab and BTool, so thank your lucky stars you're using Maple!

 

The book we're using is Discrete Structures, Logic, and Computability, by James Hein. The ISBN is 0763718432.

We're basically pulling everything straight out of the book, and not really talking about its applications.

(Just to give some more information about where I am)

 

Perhaps I'm being old fashioned here, but why not ask the lecturer what the applications of such and such would be?

The whole point of university is to learn not just have knowledge imparted to you...

 

If you are interested in the games industry as a career, the most important thing to realize is everything changes with each new generation. What was good practice last gen is often extremely bad practice this gen.

If you learn applications and other practical things you will be fine in the short term, but within five years all that knowledge will be irrelevant. The important thing is to learn the fundamentals of computing so you can understand and adapt to future concepts.

 

I just realized that I made quite a big mistake in this thread:

I meant to say that the class is Discrete Structures, not Mathematics (that class I haven't taken yet).

Really sorry about that, guys.

 

Many programming jobs in the industry require an attention to detail.

Fail.

 

Fixed it for ya, 'Sprinkles'.

 

Hey, sorry about the mistake. The class is structured so much like a math class that I started calling it a math class. (And hey, I said I was sorry.)

 

:-?

 

http://discretestructures.jbpub.com/toc.cfm

Just looking at the table of contents, that's math.

It's all fundamental stuff without which there would be no computers. So yeah, keep at it.

Well actually, if you're not enjoying it all, maybe you should re-evaluate what you're doing the course for.

 

Yeah, it looks like it takes discrete mathematics, algorithms and rolls them all up into one big ball teaching students the basics. *sigh*

 

Hi Suiken,

I asked myself the same question when taking a similar course. Like all maths that you will study, discrete mathematics might not be directly applicable to all situations encountered every day, but it can be useful sometimes.

The key point is that mathematics in general trains you to analyze and solve problems. Discrete mathematics is just one more tool for your toolbox in solving those problems. The more techniques you are familiar with, the better you will be at solving problems. You will learn the details of these "tools" in your coursework, but it is also important to understand when and how such mathematical techniques may be useful.

Good luck!

 

Okay, well, thanks everyone for your input. I guess all I can do is try my best to absorb this and apply in my higher division courses.

I guess the whole world can't run on just algebra, geometry, calculus and statistics, huh?