Reasoning and Proof

In a regular conversation, how many times have you heard, “That seems logical,”—once, twice, a lot of times? Try to recall why the statement was made. Most likely it was made because the conversation followed some sort of procedure or outlined a step-by-step process that seemed to make sense. In mathematics, we use truth tables to determine if statements are true or false. In some ways, your intuition about logic will serve you well as you explore the ideas behind reasoning and proof. However, you may find that, when dealing with compound statements, the rules of formal logic differ from everyday conversation.