[nomathshere]

In the early paragraphs, it shows:

∀ n ∈ N n2 + n + 41

It goes on to tell what ∀ means, and what N means, but excludes ∈.

This tells me there is a level of maths prerequisites required. For those of us who had liberal arts backgrounds with very little math who are programmers by sweat and knack, where can one go to get enough training to be ready to read something like this? I'd love to get through it and finally feel I'm on equal footing with some of my CS-trained peers (and actually be able to leverage the concepts at work) but seeing this early in the book leads me to believe I need some prerequisites first.

Thanks for your advice.

[eddie_the_head]

This is just a little set notation, ∈ means 'is an element of' the set after the symbol. So for example, ∀ n ∈ N n^2 + n + 41 means 'for every n in the set of real numbers, n^2+n+41'. Reading the linked story, that's a proposition for the definition of prime numbers setting up for a proof. You usually learn set notation, proofs, induction, relations, and most of the stuff before probability I scanned in the Table of Contents there in a discrete math course. Many also cover probability, but ymmv.

[brent]

Look at the version in the comment posted by joshma: http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring12/mcsfull.pdf

You must not have been the only person to notice this. The definition is on pg 6 in the pdf above.

[nomathshere]

Awesome...thanks. So I suppose these should be used instead of the originally posted pdf? Thanks again!

[nomathshere]

By the way I did have algebra 1 and 2, geometry, business calculus, and statistics, but it's been a looooooooooong time and at this point it's as if I didn't.