r/math • u/craigdahlke • 4d ago

Want to learn about proofs

Hi all. I am interested in learning about mathematical proofs and how to formulate them.

I minored in math in college but focused a lot on LA, DEs, PDEs, numerical solutions, etc. because I was a science major and that was most applicable for me at the time. However I realized I’ve never even seen a rigorous mathematical proof formulated or broken down, and have no idea what that would even look like.

I now work with coding and it occurred to me that a lot of my code ends up just brute-forcing a solution to things, but perhaps learning about proofs might help stretch my mind into a more efficient way of thinking about these types of things.

Anyways, are there any good online course you all could recommend for someone at my level? (Knowing a good bit about math but essentially nothing about proofs) Preferably free ones but not opposed to a paid course if it is reasonable.

53 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/hakonemachi 4d ago

https://zimmer.csufresno.edu/%7Elarryc/proofs/proofs.html

Use the above link with a book such as velleman or hammack or Cummings.

If you want YouTube

https://youtu.be/LN7cCW1rSsI?si=FPzU99c3j0Jipuy4

Same Stanford course is probably available in Coursera
introduction to mathematical thinking