Brown Dot Teaching Resources

A group of Brown Dots (1999-2000 Project NExT Fellows) are collecting web resources on various topics. This page is maintained by Randall Pruim and includes resources for

Logic

Textbooks and related sites

LMCS: Logic for Mathematics and Computer Science by Stanley N. Burris (U. Waterloo)
LPL: Langauge, Proof, and Logic by J. Barwise and J. Etchemendy
- Hints and Solutions for exercises.
- Rykman's Logic Works supposedly has a number of things on it that are intended to be coordinated with the Barwise/Etchemendy text. Not much is actually there yet, but perhaps in the future this will be an interesting site.
- Obituary for Jon Barwise, who died in March, 2000.

Course Home Pages

Below is a list of course home pages I have come across. The parenthesized designation indicates the text used, where applicable. (Abbreviations are listed above.)

Philosophy 7405: Mathematical Logic, Richard Thomason at U. Michigan [LPL+]
Philosophy 202: Symbolic Logic, M. O'Rourke at U. Idaho [LPL]

Theorem Provers

Automated Reasoning at Argonne has info on various theorem provers.
- You can try out two of these (Otter and MACE) online using Son of BirdBrain.

Machine Simulators

Eileen Head has written some sophisticated Java simulators for several kinds of machines including Turing Machines, Finite State Machines, and Push-Down Automata. [Style appears to be ala Hopcroft and Ulman]
A nice Turing Machine applet by Suzanne Britton/Skinner. [Source available!]
A graphically fancy Turing Machine applet From the Winner's Circle at sunsite.utk.edu. This applet has nifty graphics (a cute little machine, a tape that rolls onto spools on either end rather than just disappearing off the screen, etc.) but on my screen the rules list is too small to read and you only have a choice of 4 programs to run, at least as it is set up on this page.
http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e9108323/
Virtual Turing Machine. This is done as a form-based perl program. (Doesn't require JAVA)
Finite State Machine Explorer. A DFA/NFA type simulator programmed by Matt Chapman as undergraduate project.
A description of how to simulate a Turing Machine in Conway's Game of Life.

Busy Beaver Problem

Go here to find out what the Busy Beaver Problem is and to find some interesting links about it.
Heiner Marxen's Page lists some known facts and record-holders.

Courses, Tutorials, Demos, etc.

Collection of Lecture Notes, Surveys and Papers housed at the University of Paderborn.
Eric Schecther's Math 250 Home Page includes a number of links to other sources and well as some discussion of his approach to logic.
Gateway to Logic by Christian Gottschall

Notes

Mike Stob's Logic Notes: Postscript notes by Mike Stob for an advanced undergraduate logic course. Traditional syllabus aiming for Goedel's Theorem.
Randall Pruim's Logic notes. These only cover a few selected topics from an undergraduate Advanced Logic course. Most notably, there is material on cardinality, countability, and diagonalizationan, and there is a section giving a brief introduction to set theory. (dvi, postscript)

Prolog

Pruim's Prolog Page: These materials were used in conjunction with the predicate logic part of a discrete math course. Includes a prolog interpreter that can be run over the WWW, an example from Monty Python, examples, exercises, ...

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This page is maintained by Randall Pruim. Please email comments, corrections, suggestions and the like to rpruim@calvin.edu.