Assignment 2:
Simple and Compound Statements.
MAT 101: Logic, Sets and Numbers,
Professors R. Glass and M. Spiegelman, Nassau Community College
In logic, we have the simple statement, A. A can be true or false. In a
research database, a query (search) can be formed by just giving the word, for
example, death (see your particular
database for the exact format). When the
search word appears in an entry in the database, the simple statement A is true and that result is returned.
If all our queries (searches) were simple statements then,
well, everything would be simple. As in
class, the more interesting case is when we want to form compound statements.
- Suppose
we needed to research the death
penalty.
- How
many results were returned by putting in the words death and penalty and then searching for death penalty?
- Looking
at a few of the results, where do the words death and penalty
appear? In the text? In the title? Are the words adjacent?
- What
would you do if you wanted the exact phrase death penalty to appear?
- If d = death, p = penalty s = the
phrase death penalty, c = the phrase capital punishment and n
the phrase New York State. Form for your database and document the
results for
- d /\ p
- d \/ p
- s
- s /\ n
- s /\
~ n
- s \/ c
- s /\ c
- As the
individual assignment (the group should decide who does a and who does b), re-do the previous part for:
- Where d = Baseball, p = players,
s = baseball players, c = drug abuse and n = steroid use.
- Where
d = global, p = warming, s = global warming, c
= air pollution, and n = green
house effect.
Be sure to document (record number
of hits) what query returned.
© R. Glass and M. Spiegelman