Why do we do proofs?, U-Now OpenCourseWare - Mathematics Undergraduate Courses

The University of Nottingham,
King's Meadow Campus,
Lenton Ln, Nottingham NG7 2NR, United Kingdom,

Course Description,
The aim of this session is to motivate students to understand why we might want to do proofs, why proofs are important, and how they can help us. In particular, the student will learn the following: proofs can help you to really see WHY a result is true; problems that are easy to state can be hard to solve (Fermat's Last Theorem); sometimes statements which appear to be intuitively obvious may turn out to be false (the Hospitals paradox); the answer to a question will often depend crucially on the definitions you are working with. Target audience: suitable for anyone with a knowledge of elementary algebra and prime numbers, as may be obtained by studying A level mathematics.