Formal logic is the study of the structure of reasoning itself—how arguments are built, when they succeed, and why they fail. In an age of information overload, knowing how to dissect an argument, detect reasoning errors, and construct rigorous proofs is a superpower. This course introduces the foundations of formal logic, with an emphasis on precision, clarity, and critical thinking tools. From everyday statements to abstract puzzles, you will learn how to translate ideas into symbolic form and test their validity.
If you had a robot who always tied your shoes for you, would you ever have learned how to tie your shoes yourself? What about if that same agent did all your arithmetic and all your writing, and eventually shaped all your decisions? The promise of AI is fraught with ethical questions that strike at the very heart of what it means to be human and to act as a moral agent in society. It reveals a fundamental tension between what AI can do and what AI should do. In the modern world, that tension is growing.
Have you ever imagined speaking in the language of computers, and transforming your ideas into actions that computers can perform? This course is a gateway to discovering the art and science of programming, a crucial skill that serves as the backbone of computer science. But computer science transcends mere programming. Our actual aim is to nurture your ability to think like a computer scientist.
Have you ever wondered what a computer is and how it actually works? In this course, we’ll answer the hardware half of this question. Working from the ground up, we will start with basic circuits and develop elementary logic gates. Taking these gates as our building blocks, we will construct the core components of a modern computer. Our journey will culminate in using machine code to control the computer we have designed.
