Discrete Structure Answer Key
Discrete Structure Answer Key
1
to find web pages about hiking in Virginia, but not in West
Virginia.
First, hiking AND West AND Virginia. Second, hiking
AND Virginia AND NOT West. With most search engines,
you would simply write
hiking West Virginia
hiking West -Virginia
Furthermore, most search engines allow strings to be spec-
ified, like “West Virginia” which require the word West to
immediately precede Virginia. With those, the first answer
could be: hiking AND “West Virginia”, and the second: hik-
ing AND Virginia AND NOT “West Virginia”. Note that
BUT NOT is the same as AND NOT.
62. Five friends have access to a chat room. Is it possible
to determine who is chatting if the following information is
known?
1. Either Kevin or Heather, or both, are chatting.
2. Either Randy or Vijay, but not both, are chatting.
3. If Abbey is chatting, so is Randy.
4. Vijay and Keven are either both chatting or neither is.
5. If Heather is chatting, then so are Abby and Kevin.
Explain your reasoning.
It’s easiest to use symbolic notation. Then we have the
following five propostions.
1. K ∨ H.
2. R ⊕ V .
3. A → R.
4. V ↔ K.
5. H → A ∧ K.
There are many ways to proceed. Here’s one. Note that 1
and 5 both involve K and H. 1 says either K or H, but
5 says that if H, then also A ∧ K, so K in that case, too.
Thus, H occurs whenever K occurs, so in all cases K. Now
1 is satisfied.
So we now know K. By 4, therefore also V , and 4 is
now satisfied. By 2, therefore ¬R, and 2 is satisfied. Then
by 3, therefore ¬A, and 3 is satisfied. But by 5, since ¬A,
therefore ¬H, and 5 is satisfied.
By now, we’ve satisfied all five statements in the only way
possible, namely, with K, V , but not R, not A, and not H.
Thus, the answer to the question is: we can conclude that
Kevin and Vijay are chatting, but the other three aren’t.