Discrete Mathematics

Abdurrahman Yusuf Haydar

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1.3 Propositional equivalences
• Replace a statement with another statement
with the same truth value
• For efficiency (speed-up) or implementation
purpose (e.g., circuit design)

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Tautology and contradiction

• A compound proposition:
• Tautology: always true
• Contradiction: always false
• Contingency: neither a tautology nor a contradiction
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Logical equivalence
• p ≡ q (p q): the compound propositions p
and q are logically equivalent if p ↔ q is a
tautology
• Can use truth table to determine whether two
propositions are equivalent or not

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Example
• Show that ┐(p v q) and ┐p ˄ ┐ q are equivalent

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p  q  p  q

p q p→q ┐p˅q

T T T T

T F F F

F T T T

F F T T

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Example

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Example

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De Morgan’s laws

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Example
• Express the negation of “Heather will go to
the concert or Steve will go to the concert”

• Negation:
Heather will not go to the concert AND Steve
will not go to the concert.

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De Morgan’s law: general form
• The first example above is known as the De
Morgan’s law

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Logical equivalences

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Constructing new logical equivalences
• Show ┐ (p → q) ≡ p ˄ ┐ q
┐ (p → q) ≡ ┐(┐p ˅ q)
≡ ┐(┐p) ˄ ┐q
≡ p ˄ ┐q

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Constructing new logical equivalences
• Show ┐ (p ˅ (┐ p ˄ q) ) ≡ ┐ p ˄ ┐ q
┐ (p ˅ (┐ p ˄ q) ) ≡ ┐ p ˄ (┐(┐ p ˄ q))
≡ ┐ p ˄ (┐(┐ p) ˅ ┐q)
≡ ┐ p ˄ (p ˅ ┐q)
≡ (┐ p ˄ p ) ˅ (┐ p ˄ ┐q)
≡ F ˅ (┐ p ˄ ┐q)
≡ ┐ p ˄ ┐q

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Limitations of proposition logic
• Proposition logic cannot adequately express the
meaning of statements
• Suppose we know
“Every computer connected to the university network is
functioning property”
• No rules of propositional logic allow us to conclude
“MATH3 is functioning properly”
where MATH3 is one of the computers connected to the
university network

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Example
• Cannot use the rules of propositional logic to
conclude from
“CS2 is under attack by an intruder”
where CS2 is a computer on the university network

to conclude the truth

“There is a computer on the university network that

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Example: x > 3
• The variable x is the subject of the statement
• Predicate “is greater than 3” refers to a property
that the subject of the statement can have
• Can denote the statement by p(x) where p denotes
the predicate “is greater than 3” and x is the variable
• p(x): also called the value of the propositional
function p at x
• Once a value is assigned to the variable x, p(x)
becomes a proposition and has a truth value

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Example
• Let p(x) denote the statement “x > 3”
– p(4): setting x=4, thus p(4) is true
– p(2): setting x=2, thus p(2) is false
• Let a(x) denote the statement “computer x is under
attack by an intruder”. Suppose that only CS2 and
MATH1 are currently under attack
– a(CS1)? : false
– a(CS2)? : true
– a(MATH1)?: true

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N-ary Predicate
• A statement involving n variables, x1, x2, …, xn,
can be denoted by p(x1, x2, …, xn)
• p(x1, x2, …, xn) is the value of the propositional
function p at the n-tuple (x1, x2, …, xn)
• p is also called n-ary predicate

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Quantifiers
• Express the extent to which a predicate is true
• In English, all, some, many, none, few
• Focus on two types:
– Universal: a predicate is true for every element
under consideration
– Existential: a predicate is true for there is one or
more elements under consideration
• Predicate calculus: the area of logic that deals
with predicates and quantifiers
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Universal quantifier 
• “p(x) for all values of x in the domain”
x p (x)
• Read it as “for all x p(x)” or “for every x p(x)”
• A statement x p(x)is false if and only if p(x) is
not always true
• An element for which p(x) is false is called a
counterexample of x p(x)
• A single counterexample is all we need to
establish that is not true
x p (x)
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Example
• Let p(x) be the statement “x+1>x”. What is the
truth value of x p(x) ?
– Implicitly assume the domain of a predicate is not
empty
– Best to avoid “for any x” as it is ambiguous to
whether it means “every” or “some”
• Let q(x) be the statement “x<2”. What is the
truth value of x q(x) where the domain
consists of all real numbers?
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Example
• Let p(x) be “x2>0”. To show that the statement
x p (x)is false where the domain consists of all
integers
– Show a counterexample with x=0
• When all the elements can be listed, e.g., x1, x2, …,
xn, it follows that the universal quantification
is the same asxthepconjunction
(x) p(x1) ˄p(x2) ˄…˄
p(xn)

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Example
• What is the truth value of x p(x) where p(x)
is the statement “x2 < 10” and the domain
consists of positive integers not exceeding 4?
x p (x) is the same as p(1)˄p(2)˄p(3)˄p(4)

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Existential quantification 
• “There exists an element x in the domain such
that p(x) (is true)”
• Denote that as x p(x) where  is the
existential quantifier
• In English, “for some”, “for at least one”, or
“there is”
• Read as “There is an x such that p(x)”, “There is
at least one x such that p(x)”, or “For some x,
p(x)”
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Example
• Let p(x) be the statement “x>3”. Is x p(x)
true for the domain of all real numbers?
• Let q(x) be the statement “x=x+1”. Is x p(x)
true for the domain of all real numbers?
• When all elements of the domain can be
listed, , e.g., x1, x2, …, xn, it follows that the
existential quantification is the same as
disjunction p(x1) ˅p(x2) ˅ … ˅ p(xn)
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Example
• What is the truth value of x p(x) where p(x)
is the statement “x2 > 10” and the domain
consists of positive integers not exceeding 4?
x p (x) is the same as p(1) ˅p(2) ˅p(3) ˅ p(4)

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Uniqueness quantifier ! 1

• There exists a unique x such that p(x) is true

• “There is exactly one”, “There is one and only

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Quantifiers with restricted
domains
• What do the following statements mean for
the domain of real numbers?

x  0, x  0 same as x( x  0  x  0)
2 2

y  0, y  0 same as y ( y  0  y  0)
3 3

z  0, z  2
2
same as z ( z  0  z  2)2

Be careful about → and ˄ in these statements

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Precedence of quantifiers
•  and  have higher precedence than all
logical operators from propositional calculus
x p ( x)  q ( x)  (x p ( x))  q ( x) rather than x ( p ( x)  q ( x))

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Binding variables
• When a quantifier is used on the variable x, this
occurrence of variable is bound
• If a variable is not bound, then it is free
• All variables occur in propositional function of
predicate calculus must be bound or set to a
particular value to turn it into a proposition
• The part of a logical expression to which a
quantifier is applied is the scope of this
quantifier
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Example
What are the scope of these expressions?
Are all the variables bound?

x( x  y  1)
x( p ( x)  q ( x))  xR( x)
x( p ( x)  q ( x))  yR( y )
The same letter is often used to represent variables
bound by different quantifiers with scopes
that do not overlap
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