Syllabus of Discrete Structures

UNIT 1:
• Propositional Logic
• Methods of Proof
UNIT 2:
• Sets, Relations and Functions
• Size of a Set
UNIT 3:
• Algebraic Structures and Morphisms
UNIT 4:
• Graphs and Trees
UNIT 1: PROPOSITIONAL LOGIC
 SYNTAX
The syntax of propositional logic consists in the definition of the set of all propositional logic
formulae, or the language of propositional logic formulae, which will contain formulae like:

SEMANTICS
Semantics provides the “meaning” of propositional logic formulae. It is defined very precisely in a
mathematical way. The semantics allows us to identify correct inference rules.
Example: Intuitively, the meaning of “A ∧ B” is that “this is only true if both A and B are true”.
 Other Laws of Logic

NOTE:
Dual of proposition p:
If the proposition p,
contains only the logical
connectives only, AND
and OR, and no other
connectives are there, then
the dual of p is obtained
by replacing AND by OR
and OR by AND, then it is
dual.
De Morgan’s Rule
Let P AND Q are two compound propositions. And the connectives are the logical connectives
between the primitive propositions. So, logical connectives are the conjunction, disjunction and
negation.
• Now, the De Morgan’s rules tell that the negation of compound proposition P can be obtained by
replacing, AND by OR, the OR by AND, and making each primitive statements as the negation of
that.
Theorem: The conditional proposition (p → q) and its contrapositive (¬q → ¬p)
are equivalent
 PREDICATES AND QUANTIFIERS

 Why predicate logic is required??

The Limitation of Propositional Logic: see propositional logic discusses about the propositions or the statements which is
either true or false; but it is incapable of some statements which are normally used in mathematics or computer science and
the predicate logic will handle this type of statements.

Example- p: n is an odd integer

So, if n equal to 11, then it is true. But n can be 10 or 110. Then, it is false. So, this statement is neither true nor false. what
is n? So, n is an odd integer; n can take any value. So, n is a variable. So, the statements involving variable cannot be
handled by propositional logic and for this, predicate logic is needed.
NESTED QUANTIFIERS
NEGATING NESTED QUANTIFIERS