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Hi guys I am studying "How to Prove It," by Velleman. its a great book and I feel that it can really help people out with logic. However, the one thing that this book lacks are the answers to all the exercises. I am proposing posting all the exercises on this site, with answers and explanations to each and every problem. In addition to this, maybe post unsolved problems and make this collaborative as well. I am studying to become a computer programmer and I have noticed that a lot of the problems deal with critical thinking and logic and maybe this book can help in this respect since its an introduction.

So is there a way to get this started?

Thanks guys.

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  • $\begingroup$ By "unsolved problems," do you mean exercises that you don't know how to solve, or do you mean actual unsolved problems - problems for which mathematicians as a whole have not yet found a solution? Because this site is not really a great collaborative site for unsolved problems. That doesn't mean the questions can't be asked, just that the structure is not conducive to a lot of collaboration. (Particularly: The size limits of comments. mathoverflow.com is generally intended for research-level mathematics. $\endgroup$ – Thomas Andrews Mar 23 '15 at 21:03
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    $\begingroup$ Maybe, if you are indeed a computer guy, try performing a search through the site to see if any of your questions have been answered. $\endgroup$ – Ron Gordon Mar 23 '15 at 21:04
  • $\begingroup$ To help others that have yet to find the answer to the exercises. The problems all have been solved but he doesnt have the answers in his book. However, its not just about the answers. I feel that providing explanations to the answers is much better. $\endgroup$ – user249240 Mar 23 '15 at 21:07
  • $\begingroup$ I think its a good idea. Note that you can also use the sanboxes if you want to put some theory together with the exercises and not make too long questions (it seems that much less people read long questions). $\endgroup$ – Surb Mar 23 '15 at 21:46
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    $\begingroup$ @user249240 See this. $\endgroup$ – Git Gud Mar 23 '15 at 22:03
  • $\begingroup$ Believe me, I did. However some of his answers are wrong. Not many, but some are. $\endgroup$ – user249240 Mar 23 '15 at 22:16
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    $\begingroup$ I'm not sure that MSE is a good format for such things. There's a user who shan't be named who uses MSE as his/her personal blog, effectively, often posting questions and answering the questions a short while later. It's their way of collecting answers to problems in various texts and I agree that that is a good thing to do, but I do not feel that this forum is right for it. As such, I wouldn't support it in this case either. Unless you find particular ones really interesting and want to really generate interesting discussion about the philosophy of the problem. $\endgroup$ – Cameron Williams Mar 24 '15 at 3:51
  • $\begingroup$ @CameronWilliams The way you have phrased this makes it seem current, but surely you refer MK? $\endgroup$ – user142198 Mar 24 '15 at 10:53
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    $\begingroup$ According to the current network wide Stackexchange policy you can do so. If your question does not get closed and has an answer accepted then the post will not be deleted. $\endgroup$ – user103816 Mar 24 '15 at 12:48
  • $\begingroup$ @Committingtoachallenge Not MK but a current user. I don't like name dropping because it just causes issues. $\endgroup$ – Cameron Williams Mar 24 '15 at 14:21
  • $\begingroup$ You said some of the questions have wrong answers. Why start a new post when you can downvote the wrong answer and add a correct answer? $\endgroup$ – dustin Mar 29 '15 at 14:24
  • $\begingroup$ The answers that the user posted are not within stackexchange. It is an external website $\endgroup$ – user249240 Apr 1 '15 at 17:29
  • $\begingroup$ Is there any copyright concerns for posting full (verbatim) questions and solutions on a site like this? I used to teach calculus (and had the instructor's solution manual). In the manual it explicitly stated that we (instructors) were not allowed to distribute the solution manual (or portions of it). The instructor solution manual had all solutions, the student solution manual had only the odd solutions. $\endgroup$ – TravisJ Apr 3 '15 at 0:59
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    $\begingroup$ Otherwise, I've thought something similar would be fun (and potentially useful)... I want (or wanted) to carefully work through volumes of "The Art of Computer Programming" (vols1 and 4). $\endgroup$ – TravisJ Apr 3 '15 at 1:00
  • $\begingroup$ I find that it would be so useful as well. If we are stuck on a problem the whole site can contribute to finding the Answers and explaining how they arrived at the answer $\endgroup$ – user249240 Apr 4 '15 at 19:25

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