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MATH2054 Discrete
Mathematics for Industrial
Engineering
CHAPTER 1
SPEAKING MATHEMATICALLY

1.1 Variables
We can use variables as a placeholder when we want to talk about
something but either
1. You know that it has one or more values but you don’t know what they are

2. You want whatever you say about it to be equally true for all elements in a
given set, and so you don’t want to be restricted to considering only a
particular, concrete value for it.
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Example for the first condition

• Is there a number with the following property: doubling it and adding 3 gives
the same result as squaring it?
• Is there a number x with the property that 2x +3= x2?
• The advantage of using a variable is that it allows you to give a temporary
name to what you are seeking so that you can perform concrete
computations with it to help discover its possible values.
• To emphasize the role of the variable as a placeholder, you might write the
following:
• Is there a number n with the property that 2.□ +3= □ 2?
• The emptiness of the box can help you imagine filling it in with a variety of different
values, some of which might make the two sides equal and others of which might not.

For the second use of variable consider following;

• No matter what number might be chosen, if it is greater than 2, then its square is
greater than 4.
• In this case introducing a variable to give a temporary name to the (arbitrary)
number you might choose enables you to maintain the generality of the statement,
and replacing all instances of the word “it” by the name of the variable ensures that
possible ambiguity is avoided: No matter what number n might be chosen, if n is
greater than 2, then n2 is greater than 4.
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Use variables to rewrite the following sentences formally

1. Are there numbers with the property that the sum of their squares equals
the square of their sum?
2. Given any real number, its square is nonnegative

Important Kinds of Mathematical Statements

3 of the most important kinds of sentences in Mathematics are as
follows:
• A universal statement says that a certain property is true for all elements in a
set. (For example: All positive numbers are greater than zero.)
• A conditional statement says that if one thing is true then some other thing
also has to be true. (For example: If 378 is divisible by 18, then 378 is divisible
by 6.)
• Given a property that may or may not be true, an existential statement says
that there is at least one thing for which the property is true. (For example:
There is a prime number that is even.)
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Universal Conditional Statements

• Universal statements contain some variation of the words “for every”
and conditional statements contain versions of the words “if-then.” A
universal conditional statement is a statement that is both universal
and conditional. Here is an example: For every animal a, if a is a dog,
then a is a mammal.

• One of the most important facts about universal conditional

statements is that they can be rewritten in ways that make them
appear to be purely universal or purely conditional. For example, the
previous statement can be rewritten in a way that makes its
conditional nature explicit but its universal nature implicit:
• If a is a dog, then a is a mammal.
• Or: If an animal is a dog, then the animal is a mammal.

• The statement can also be expressed so as to make its universal

nature explicit and its conditional nature implicit:
• For every dog a, a is a mammal.
• Or: All dogs are mammals.

• The crucial point is that the ability to translate among various ways of
expressing universal conditional statements is enormously useful for
doing mathematics and many parts of computer science.
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Exercises;
Fill in the blanks to rewrite the following statement:
• Ex.For every real number x, if x is nonzero then x2 is positive.
a. If a real number is nonzero, then its square ……… .
b. For every nonzero real number x,……….. .
c. If x …….., then ………..
d. The square of any nonzero real number is, ...................... .
e. All nonzero real numbers have……………. .

Universal Existential Statements

• A universal existential statement is a statement that is universal because its first
part says that a certain property is true for all objects of a given type, and it is
existential because its second part asserts the existence of something.
• For example: Every real number has an additive inverse.
• In this statement the property “has an additive inverse” applies universally to all
real numbers.
• “Has an additive inverse” asserts the existence of something—an additive
inverse—for each real number.
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Universal Existential Statements

• However, the nature of the additive inverse depends on the real number;
different real numbers have different additive inverses. Knowing that an
additive inverse is a real number, you can rewrite this statement in several
ways, some less formal and some more formal:*
• All real numbers have additive inverses.
• Or: For every real number r, there is an additive inverse for r.
• Or: For every real number r, there is a real number s such that s is an
additive inverse for r.
• Introducing names for the variables simplifies references in further
discussion.
• One of the most important reasons for using variables in mathematics is
that it gives you the ability to refer to quantities unambiguously
throughout a lengthy mathematical argument, while not restricting you to
consider only specific values for them.

Examples:
Fill in the blanks to rewrite the following statement: Every pot has a lid.
a. All pots …………….
b. For every pot P, there is ……………..
c. For every pot P, there is a lid L such that …………….
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Existential Universal Statements

• An existential universal statement is a statement that is existential
because its first part asserts that a certain object exists and is
universal because its second part says that the object satisfies a
certain property for all things of a certain kind. For example:

• There is a positive integer that is less than or equal to every positive

integer.

• This statement is true because the number one is a positive integer,

and it satisfies the property of being less than or equal to every
positive integer. We can rewrite the statement in several ways, some
less formal and some more formal:

Existential Universal Statements

Some positive integer is less than or equal to every positive integer.

Or: There is a positive integer m that is less than or equal to every positive integer.

Or: There is a positive integer m such that every positive integer is greater than or
equal to m.

Or: There is a positive integer m with the property that for every positive integer n,
m ≤ n.
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Exercises:
Fill in the blanks to rewrite the following statement in three different
ways:
There is a person in my class who is at least as old as every person in my class.

a. Some ….. is at least as old as …… .

b. There is a person p in my class such that p is ……. .
c. There is a person p in my class with the property that for every
person q in my class, p is………………….. .

Some of the most important mathematical concepts, such as the

definition of limit of a sequence, can only be defined using phrases that
are universal, existential, and conditional, and they require the use of
all three phrases “for every,” “there is,” and “if-then.” For example, if
a1, a2, a3, ……. is a sequence of real numbers, saying that
the limit of an as n approaches infinity is L
means that
• for every positive real number ε, there is an integer N such that
• for every integer n, if n > N then –ε< an - L < ε.
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The Language of Sets

For most mathematical purposes we can think of a set intuitively, as
simply as a collection of elements. For instance, if C is the set of all
countries that are currently in the United Nations, then the United
States is an element of C, and if I is the set of all integers from 1 to 100,
then the number 57 is an element of I.
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• The axiom of extension says that a set is completely determined by

what its elements are—not the order in which they might be listed or
the fact that some elements might be listed more than once.
• Exercises:
a. Let A={1, 2, 3}, B={3, 1, 2}, and C={1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3}. What are the
elements of A, B, and C? How are A, B, and C related?
b. Is {0}=0?
c. How many elements are in the set {1, {1}}?
d. For each nonnegative integer n, let Un ={n, -n}. Find U1, U2, and U0.

• Certain sets of numbers are so frequently referred to that they are given special
symbolic names. These are summarized in the following table.

• Addition of a superscript + or - or the letters nonneg indicates that only the

positive or negative or nonnegative elements of the set, respectively, are to be
included. Thus R+ denotes the set of positive real numbers, and Znonneg refers to
the set of nonnegative integers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth.
• Some refer to the set of nonnegative integers as the set of natural numbers and
denote it as N.
• Others call only the positive integers natural numbers. To prevent confusion, we
simply avoid using the phrase natural numbers.
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• The set of real numbers is usually pictured as the set of all points on a line, as shown below.
• The set of real numbers is divided into three parts: the set of positive real numbers, the set of
negative real numbers, and the number 0. Note that 0 is neither positive nor negative.
• Labels are given for a few real numbers corresponding to points on the line shown below.

• The real number line is called continuous because it is imagined to have no holes. The set of
integers corresponds to a collection of points located at fixed intervals along the real number line.
• Every integer is a real number, and because the integers are all separated from each other, the set
of integers is called discrete.
• The name discrete mathematics comes from the distinction between continuous and discrete
mathematical objects.

• Another way to specify a set uses what is called the set-builder notation.

• Occasionally we will write {x │P (x)} without being specific about where the
element x comes from. It turns out that unrestricted use of this notation can lead
to genuine contradictions in set theory. We will be careful to use this notation
purely as a convenience in cases where the set S could be specified if necessary.
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• Exercise:

Subsets
• A basic relation between sets
is that of subset.

• It follows from the definition

of subset that for a set A not
to be a subset of a set B
means that there is at least
one element of A that is not
an element of B.
Symbolically:
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• Exercises:

Cartesian Products
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Cartesian Products

• Exercises;
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Let A = {a, b}. List all the strings of length 3 over A with at least two characters that are
the same.
Solution
aab, aba, baa, aaa, bba, bab, abb, bbb
In computer programming it is important to distinguish among different kinds of data structures and to
respect the notations that are used for them. Similarly in mathematics, it is important to distinguish
among, say, {a, b, c}, {{a, b}, c}, (a, b, c), (a, (b, c)), abc, and so forth, because these are all significantly
different objects.

The Language of Relations and Functions

• Similarly, the objects of mathematics may be related in various ways. A set
A may be said to be related to a set B if A is a subset of B, or if A is not a
subset of B, or if A and B have at least one element in common.
• A number x may be said to be related to a number y if x , y, or if x is a factor
of y, or if x2+y2 = 1.
• Two identifiers in a computer program may be said to be related if they
have the same first eight characters, or if the same memory location is
used to store their values when the program is executed.
• We use the notation x R y as a shorthand for the sentence “x is related to
y.”
• We use the notation x y
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Arrow Diagram of a Relation

• Suppose R is a relation from a set A to a set B. The arrow diagram for
R is obtained as follows:
• 1. Represent the elements of A as points in one region and the
elements of B as points in another region.
• 2. For each x in A and y in B, draw an arrow from x to y if, and only if, x
is related to y by R. Symbolically:
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Ex:

Functions
• Although this definition is not obviously related to the way we usually
work with functions in mathematics, it is satisfying from a theoretical
point of view, and computer scientists like it because it is particularly
well suited for operating with functions on a computer.
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• Properties (1) and (2) can be stated less formally as follows: A relation
F from A to B is a function if, and only if:
1. Every element of A is the first element of an ordered pair of F.
2. No two distinct ordered pairs in F have the same first element.
• In most mathematical situations we think of a function as sending
elements from one set, the domain, to elements of another set, the
co-domain.
• Because of the definition of function, each element in the domain
corresponds to one and only one element of the co-domain.

• More precisely, if F is a function from a set A to a set B, then given any

element x in A, property (1) from the function definition guarantees
that there is at least one element of B that is related to x by F and
property (2) guarantees that there is at most one such element.

• This makes it possible to give the element that corresponds to x a

special name.
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Ex.

Ex.
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Ex.
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Function Machines
• Another useful way to think of a function is as a machine. Suppose f is
a function from X to Y and an input x of X is given.
• Imagine f to be a machine that processes x in a certain way to
produce the output f(x).

Ex.
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The Language of Graphs

• Imagine an organization that wants to set up teams of three to work
on some projects.

• In order to maximize the number of people on each team who had

previous experience working together successfully, the director asked
the members to provide names of their previous partners. This
information is displayed below both in a table and in a diagram.

The Language of Graphs

From the diagram, it is easy to see that Bev, Cai, and Flo
are a group of three previous partners, and so it would be
reasonable for them to form one of these teams. The
drawing below shows the result when these three names
are removed from the diagram.
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• Drawings such as these are illustrations of a structure known as a graph.

• The dots are called vertices (plural of vertex) and the line segments joining
vertices are called edges.

• As can be seen from the first drawing, it is possible for two edges to cross
at a point that is not a vertex. Note also that the type of graph described
here is quite different from the “graph of an equation” or the “graph of a
function.”

• In general, a graph consists of a set of vertices and a set of edges

connecting various pairs of vertices. The edges may be straight or curved
and should either connect one vertex to another or a vertex to itself, as
shown below.
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Ex.
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Labeling Drawings to Show They represent the

Same Graph

Examples of Graphs
• Using a Graph to represent a Network
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Examples of Graphs
• Using a Graph to represent a Network
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Using a Graph to represent Knowledge

• In many applications of artificial intelligence, a knowledge base of
information is collected and represented inside a computer. Because
of the way the knowledge is represented and because of the
properties that govern the artificial intelligence program, the
computer is not limited to retrieving data in the same form as it was
entered; it can also derive new facts from the knowledge base by
using certain built-in rules of inference.

• For example, from the knowledge that the Los Angeles Times is a big-
city daily and that a big-city daily contains national news, an artificial
intelligence program could infer that the Los Angeles Times
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Since an edge that is a loop is counted twice, the degree of a vertex can
be obtained from the drawing of a graph by counting how many end
segments of edges are incident on the vertex.

Find the degree of each vertex of the graph G shown below.

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Using a Graph to Color a Map

• Imagine that the diagram shown below is a map with countries
labeled A –J. Show that you can color the map so that no two
adjacent countries have the same color.

1) 2)
5)

3) 4)
6)