• The Common Logical Operators

– Conjunction (and): The conjunction of propositions p and q is the compound

proposition “p and q”. We denote it

pq . It is true if p and q are both
true and false otherwise. For instance the compound proposition “2+2=4 and
Sunday is the first day of the week” is true, but “3+3=7 and the freezing point of
water is 32 degrees” false. The truth table that defines conjunction is

– The disjunction of propositions p and q is the compound proposition “p or q”. We

denote it
pq . It is true if p is true or q is true or both. For instance
the compound proposition “2+2=4 or Sunday is the first day of the week” is true,
and “3+3=7 or the freezing point of water is 32 degrees” is also true, but “2+2=5 or
UT is in Oklahoma” is false. The truth table that defines disjunction is
–
– Negation (not): The negation of a proposition p is “not p”. We denote it . It is true if
p false and vice versa. This differs from the previous operators in that it is a unary
operator, acting on a single proposition rather than a pair (the others are binary
operators). Sometimes there are several ways of expressing a negation in English,
and you should be careful to choose a clear one. For instance if p is the proposition
“2<5”, then reasonable statements of ~p are “it is not the case that 2<5” and “2 is
not less than 5” and “”. The truth table that defines negation is

–
–

– The Common Logical Operators: Conditional (implies, if-then)

– An implication is a compound proposition of the form “if p then q” or “p implies q”.

In English this phrase carries many meanings. Sometimes it means that p causes q as
in “if you eat too much you will get fat.” Sometimes it means that p guarantees q
 and vice versa as in “if you write a book report, I will give you five points extra
credit” (tacitly assuring you that if you do not write it, I certainly will not give you
extra credit). Sometimes it takes a very weak sense, simply asserting that the truth
of p guarantees the truth of q as in “if you resign the chess game, you will lose” (but
of course if you play on in a bad position, you will probably lose anyway
— continued play does not guarantee winning).

– Mathematics and logic always use implication in this weakest sense. Why? Because
this is the very least that implication means in English. It makes our claims as
conservative as possible. If we take “if-then” in this very weak sense, then we will
never assume the phrase means more than it should. We denote the compound

proposition “p implies q” by
p→q . From our discussion above the
truth table for implies is

–
– Conditional (implies, if-then)

– The implication has many phrasings in English. It is helpful to be well acquainted

with the possibilities as some of them are counterintuitive. Here are a few.

– if p then q

– p implies q

– p is sufficient for q

– q is necessary for p
– q, if p

– p only if q (unexpected but correct)

–
– A compound proposition that is always true, no matter what the truth values of the
propositional variables that occur in it, is called a tautology. A compound
 proposition that is always false is called a contradiction. A compound proposition
that is neither a tautology nor a contradiction is called a contingency

– The compound propositions p and q are called logically equivalent if p ↔ q is a

tautology. The notation p ≡ q denotes that p and q are logically equivalent.

–
– Show that ¬(p ∨ q) and ¬p ∧ ¬q are logically equivalent.

–
De Morgan laws

• Show that p → q and ¬p ∨ q are logically equivalent.

• Show that ¬(p → q) and p ∧ ¬q are logically equivalent.

• Show that ¬(p ∨ (¬p ∧ q)) and ¬p ∧ ¬q are logically equivalent by developing a series of
logical equivalences.

• Show that (p ∧ q) → (p ∨ q) is a tautology

CONVERSE, CONTRAPOSITIVE, AND INVERSE We can form some new conditional
statements starting with a conditional statement p → q. In particular, there are three related
conditional statements that occur so often that they have special names. The proposition q → p
is called the converse of p → q. The contrapositive of p → q is the proposition ￢q →￢p.
The proposition ￢p →￢q is called the inverse of p → q. We will see that of these three
conditional statements formed from p → q, only the contrapositive always has the same truth
value as p → q.
What are the contrapositive, the converse, and the inverse of the conditional statement
“The home team wins whenever it is raining?”
Solution: Because “q whenever p” is one of the ways to express the conditional statement
p → q, the original statement can be rewritten as
“If it is raining, then the home team wins.”
Consequently, the contrapositive of this conditional statement is
“If the home team does not win, then it is not raining.”
The converse is
“If the home team wins, then it is raining.”
The inverse is
“If it is not raining, then the home team does not win.”
Only the contrapositive is equivalent to the original statement.

Ex: State the converse, contrapositive, and inverse of each of

these conditional statements.
a) If it snows today, I will ski tomorrow.
b) I come to class whenever there is going to be a quiz.
c) A positive integer is a prime only if it has no divisors
other than 1 and itself.
Sol: a)
Converse: “I will ski tomorrow only
if it snows today.”
Contrapositive: “If I do not ski tomorrow,
then it will not have snowed today.”
Inverse: “If it does not
snow today, then I will not ski tomorrow.”
b)
Converse: “If I
come to class, then there will be a quiz.”
Contrapositive: “If I
do not come to class, then there will not be a quiz.”
Inverse:
“If there is not going to be a quiz, then I don’t come to class.”
c)
Converse: “A positive integer is a prime if it has no divisors
other than 1 and itself.”
Contrapositive: “If a positive integer
has a divisor other than 1 and itself, then it is not prime.”
Inverse:
“If a positive integer is not prime, then it has a divisor
other than 1 and itself.”

Quantifiers:
▪ A statement P(x) containing a free variable x may be true for some values of x and
false for others.
▪ we often want to say either that P(x) is true for every value of x or that it is true for
at least one value of x.
▪ We therefore introduce two more symbols, called quantifiers, to help us express
these ideas.
▪ To say that P(x) is true for every value of x in the universe of discourse U, we will
write ∀x P(x).
▪ This is read “For all x, P(x).”
▪ The symbol ∀ is called the universal quantifier ,because the statement ∀x P(x) says
that P(x) is universally true.
▪ P(x) is true for every value of x in the universe means that the truth set of P(x) will be
the whole universe U.
▪ We write ∃x P(x) to say that there is at least one value of x in the universe for which
P(x) is true.
▪ This is read “There exists an x such that P(x).”
▪ P(x) is true for at least one value of x means that there is at least one element in the
truth set of P(x) , in other words, the truth set is not equal to ∅.
▪ If we have the statement “If x > 2 then x2> 4,” where x ranges over the set of all real
numbers.
▪ we claimed that this statement was true for all values of x.
▪ We can now write this claim symbolically as ∀ x(x > 2→ x2 > 4).
▪ What do the following formulas mean? Are they true or false?
▪ ∀x(x2 ≥ 0) , where the universe of discourse is R, the set of all real numbers.
▪ This means that for every real number x,x2 ≥0. This is true.
▪ ∃x (x2 −2x +3=0), with universe R again.
▪ This means that there is at least one real number x that makes the equation x 2 −2x
+3=0 come out true.
▪ This statement is false.
▪ ∃x (M(x) ∧ B(x) ), where the universe of discourse is the set of all people, M(x) stands
for the statement “x is a man,” and B(x) means “x has brown hair.”
▪ There is at least one person x such that x is a man and x has brown hair. In other
words ,there is at least one man who has brown hair.
▪ This is true
▪ ∀x (M(x)→ B(x) ) , with the same universe and the same meanings for M(x) and B(x).
▪ Every person x , if x is a man then x has brown hair . In other words ,all men have
brown hair.
▪ According to this truth table, the statement M(x)→ B(x) will be false only if M(x) is
true and B(x) is false ; that is, x is a man and x doesn’t have brown hair. Thus, to say
that M(x)→ B(x) is true for every person x means that this situation never occurs, or
in other words, that there are no men who don’t have brown hair. But that’s exactly
what it means to say that all men have brown hair.
▪ this statement is false
▪ ∀ x L(x, y), where the universe is the set of all people, and L(x, y) means “x likes y.”
▪ For every person x ,x likes y. In other words, every one likes y.
▪ We can’t tell if this is true or false unless we know who y is.
▪ Someone didn’t do the homework.
▪ let H(x) stand for the statement “x did the homework,” then we can rewrite this as
∃x ¬ H(x).
▪ Everything in that store is either overpriced or poorly made.
▪ let S(x) stand for “x is in that store,” O(x) for “x is overpriced,” and P(x) for “x is
poorly made.” Then our final answer is
▪ ∀ x [S(x)→(O(x)∨ P(x))].
▪ Nobody’s perfect.
 ▪ This means ¬(somebody is perfect), or in other words ¬∃ x P(x), where P(x) stands for
“x is perfect.”
▪ Susan likes everyone who dislikes Joe.
▪ Let j stand for Joe and s for Susan .Thus , we can write L(s,x) to mean “Susan likes x,”
and ¬L (x, j) for “ x dislikes Joe.” Filling these in, we end up with the answer
▪ ∀x (¬L(x, j)→ L(s,x)).
▪ A ⊆ B.
▪ A is a subset of B means that everything in A is in B.
▪ ∀x (x ∈ A → x ∈ B).
▪ A∩B⊆B\C
▪ we first write this as ∀x(x ∈ A∩ B → x ∈ B\C). Now using the definitions of
intersection and difference, we can expand this further to get ∀x [(x ∈ A ∧ x ∈ B)→(x
∈ B ∧ xɇC)].
▪ consider the statement “Some students are married.”
▪ we can think of it as having the form ∃x(x is a student and x is married).
▪ Let S(x) stand for “x is a student.” We could similarly choose a letter to stand for “x is
married,”
▪ perhaps a better analysis would be to recognize that to be married means to be
married to someone.
▪ “All parents are married.”
▪ We start by writing it as ∀ x(if x is a parent then x is married).
▪ marriage, is a relationship between two people; to be a parent means to be a parent
of someone. Thus, it might be best to represent the statement “x is a parent” by the
formula ∃ yP(x, y), where P(x, y) means “x is a parent of y.”
▪ If we again represent “x is married” by the formula ∃y M(x, y), then our analysis of
the original statement will be
▪ ∀ x(∃ y P(x, y)→∃ z M(x, z)).

Ex: Determine the truth value of each of these statements if

the domain for all variables consists of all integers.
a) ∀n∃m(n2 < m) b) ∃n∀m(n < m2)
c) ∀n∃m(n + m = 0) d) ∃n∀m(nm = m)

e) ∃n∃m(n2 + m2 = 5) f ) ∃n∃m(n2 + m2 = 6)
g) ∃n∃m(n + m = 4 ∧ n − m = 1)
h) ∃n∃m(n + m = 4 ∧ n − m = 2)
i) ∀n∀m∃p(p = (m + n)/2)

sol: a) True
b) True
c) True
d) True
e) True
f) False
g) False
h) True
i) False

Introduction to Proofs
A proof is a valid argument that establishes the truth of a mathematical statement. A proof can
use the hypotheses of the theorem, if any, axioms assumed to be true, and previously proven
theorems. Using these ingredients and rules of inference, the final step of the proof establishes
the truth of the statement being proved.
Some Terminology
Formally, a theorem is a statement that can be shown to be true. In mathematical writing, the
term theorem is usually reserved for a statement that is considered at least somewhat
important. Less important theorems sometimes are called propositions. (Theorems can also be
referred to as facts or results.) A theorem may be the universal quantification of a conditional
statement with one or more premises and a conclusion. We demonstrate that a theorem is true
with a proof. A proof is a valid argument that establishes the truth of a theorem. The statements
used in a proof can include axioms (or postulates) ), which are statements we assume to be true.
, the premises, if any, of the theorem, and previously proven theorems.
A less important theorem that is helpful in the proof of other results is called a lemma.
Complicated proofs are usually easier to understand when they are proved using a series of
lemmas, where each lemma is proved individually. A corollary is a theorem that can be
established directly from a theorem that has been proved. A conjecture is a statement that is
being proposed to be a true statement, usually on the basis of some partial evidence, a heuristic
argument, or the intuition of an expert. When a proof of a conjecture is found, the conjecture
becomes a theorem. Many times conjectures are sh
 own to
be false, so they are not theorems
 5. Prove that the following statements are equivalent:
(i) n - 1 is even, (ii) n + 1 is even.
 Let n – 1 is even, say, 2k. Then n = 2k + 1. Hence n + 1 = 2k + 1 +
1 = 2(k + 1). So, n + 1 is even.
Let n + 1 is even, say, 2k. Then n = 2k - 1. Hence n - 1 = 2k - 1 - 1
= 2(k - 1). So, n - 1 is even.
Hence, the following statements are equivalent:
(i) n - 1 is even, (ii) n + 1 is even.