Typing Logical Notation

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dauer

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Hey all.

I have been teaching myself different languages in formal logic using the most excellent book Introduction to Logic by Harry Gensler and the accompanying LogiCola software. I've gone through the syllogistic and propositional logic chapters and am now on quantificational logic. Do any of you know if there's an easy way to type logical notation out on either a mac or pc? Some of it I know is really simple to do but some of the symbols, like the existential quantifier symbol, I don't know of any hot keys. Will I have to create a macro for each?

Thank you for your time.

-- Dauer
 
I have never done that. Have you tried the system character map in Windows? On windowsxp I click Start-->Run, type in 'charmap' and press enter.

Maybe you can find Maple 12 at a college somewhere. Its got a point and click environment including all of the logical operators, and will actually do logical math, graphs, or whatever you'd like. A personal version here runs about 120$ or I'd have one.
www.waterloomaple.com
 
I've tried going through the character maps in XP and OS X but that becomes really tedious when working with proofs. Maple 12 looks sweet. Once I'm back in school I think I might pick it up with the student discount. I just googled for free maple alternative and found these:

Mathomatic Demo Page

and

Maxima, a Computer Algebra System

the second sounds a little more promising, but will have to check both out. There's also this:

Sage: Open Source Mathematics Software

which I will probably check out too. It looks like it might be a little more polished than the others.
 
I'll ask my friend America tomorrow (she's working on a double PhD [one in math sciences, the other in computer sciences] so she would be more apt to know.)

*one of the cuter members of the :kitty: delegation grooms herself for a visit to her favorite discordian duo*

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine
 
Those look cool; and the sage seems to have similar command line notation to Maple.
 
Have you tried any of them out yet? I haven't had a chance to download em.
 
No but since Sage relies upon Python scripts, I downloaded version 2.5 of Python and started reading the tutorial (but then I found out version 3.0 was recently released). It turns out 3.0 changes some fundamental items of the language, like how strings are handled. It now boasts better support for unicode. (The Unicode Consortium: Home Page)

Python seems like the language of choice for Neural net people and brain scientists, is simple and responsive, and it is very portable. I'm looking through the tutorial for 3.0. Its not a symbolic system by itself. Python does not allow you to use variables (like x & y) that have no value, so I guess Sage must make up for that somehow. Python does have built in support for complex numbers, though; and it works as a full system scripting language for windows. I think it can be compiled into Java bytecode, too.
 
Not sure. I'm not much of a math head. I really just want something that allows me to easily type logical notation, perhaps that understands the rules for different logical languages but that last bit isn't really necessary. I've used this:

Download LogiCola

but it doesn't have a more open-ended text editor, just exercises.
 
Dauer,

I was interested in the same idea of finding a way to express logical notation on a word processor format with little effort. Good news is I found a way to express logical notation. Bad news is that it requires a lot of effort. If you feel frustrated at all other attempts I suggest you take a look at this. It's called LaTeX, also know as "La-" Tau Epsilon Chi or "La-Tech". The language itself is called TeX, but LaTeX is, from what I understand, a way of formulating TeX. Anyhow, with a little research from http(colon)(slash)(slash)www(dot)logicmatters(dot)net I found LaTeX to be a, but not and end-all, solution to this problem of yours. Whether you can use it or not is up to you. Good Luck!

justpassingalong.
 
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