1/17/2019

Tassos Dimitriou

CpE-203
Discrete Structures

Set 1
Prof. Tassos Dimitriou

Computer Engineering Department

Kuwait University

CpE-203: Discrete Structures 1

Tassos Dimitriou

Outline
Introduction to Logic
Propositions
Variables
Logical operators
Applications of Logic
Predicates and quantifiers

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Logic
The rules of logic give precise meaning to mathematical
statements. These rules are used to distinguish
between valid and invalid mathematical arguments.

Numerous applications.
 These rules are used in the design of computer circuits, the
construction and verification of the correctness of
programs, artificial intelligence, computer programming,
etc.
Logic is based on propositions. A proposition is a statement
that is either true or false (but not both).
Statement: A declarative sentence.

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The Statement/Proposition Game

“Elephants are bigger than mice.”

Is this a statement? yes

Is this a proposition? yes

What is the truth value

of the proposition? true

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The Statement/Proposition Game

“520 < 111.”

Is this a statement? yes

Is this a proposition? yes

What is the truth value

of the proposition? false

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The Statement/Proposition Game

“y > 5.”

Is this a statement? yes

Is this a proposition? no

Its truth value depends on the value of y, but

this value is not specified. We call this type of
statement a propositional function or open
sentence.
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The Statement/Proposition Game

“We are at Kuwait and 99 < 5.”

Is this a statement? yes

Is this a proposition? yes

What is the truth value

of the proposition? false

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The Statement/Proposition Game

“Please do not fall asleep.”

Is this a statement? no
It’s a request…
Is this a proposition? no

Only statements can be propositions.

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The Statement/Proposition Game

“If elephants were red,
they could hide in cherry trees.”

Is this a statement? yes

Is this a proposition? yes

What is the truth value Probably

of the proposition? false

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Propositional variables
As we have seen in the previous examples, one or more
propositions can be combined to form a single
compound proposition

We use propositional variables to refer to propositions

 Usually are lower case letters starting (i.e. p, q, r, s, etc.)
 A propositional variable can have one of two values: true (T) or
false (F)

A proposition can be…

 A single variable: p
 An operation of multiple variables: p(qr)

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Logical Operators (Connectives)

We will examine the following logical operators:
• Negation (NOT)
• Conjunction (AND)
• Disjunction (OR)
• Exclusive or (XOR)
• Implication (if – then)
• Biconditional (if and only if)

Truth tables can be used to show how these operators can

combine propositions to form compound propositions.
In the following examples,
 p = “Today is Friday”
 q = “Today is my birthday”
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Logical operators: NOT

A “not” operation switches (complements or negates) the
truth value
p p
Symbol:  or ~
T F
p = “Today is not Friday”
F T

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Logical operators: AND

An “and” operation is true if both operands are true
Symbol:  or ‘·’
p q pq
T T T
pq = “Today is Friday and
today is my birthday” T F F
F T F
F F F

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Logical operators: OR
An “or” operation is true if either (at least one) operands are
true
Symbol:  or ‘+’ p q pq
T T T
pq = “Today is Friday or T F T
today is my birthday (or F T T
possibly both)” F F F

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Logical operators: XOR

An “xor” operation is true when exactly one of the operands
is true
Symbol:  p q pq
T T F
p  q = “Either Today is Friday or T F T
today is my birthday (but not both)” F T T
F F F

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Logical operators: Conditional 1

A conditional means “if p then q”
Symbol: 
pq = “If today is Friday p q pq
then today is my birthday”
T T T
p→q = ¬pq T F F
F T T
hypothesis or conclusion or F F T
antecedent consequence

Note that if p is false, then

the conditional is true regardless of whether q is true or false

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Logical operators: Conditional 2

Because conditional statements play such an essential role in
mathematical reasoning, a variety of terminology is used to
express p → q.
 p→q p implies q
 If p, q p only if q
 p is sufficient for q a sufficient condition for q is p
 q if p q unless ￢p
 q whenever p q is necessary for p

Let p be the statement “Maria learns discrete mathematics”

and q the statement “Maria will find a good job.” Express the
statement p → q as a statement in English.

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Practice
Write each of these statements in the form “if p, then q” in
English.
a) It snows whenever the wind blows from the northeast.
b) The apple trees will bloom if it stays warm for a week.
c) That the Pistons win the championship implies that they beat the
Lakers.
d) It is necessary to walk 8 miles to get to the top of Long’s Peak.
e) To get tenure as a professor, it is sufficient to be world famous.
f ) If you drive more than 400 miles, you will need to buy gasoline.
g) Your guarantee is good only if you bought your CD player less
than 90 days ago.
h) Jan will go swimming unless the water is too cold.

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Contrapositive
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 (is equivalent to) p → q.

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Logical operators: Conditional 3

Conditional Inverse Converse Contrapositive
p q p q pq pq qp qp
T T F F T T T T
T F F T F T T F
F T T F T F F T
F F T T T T T T

Find the contrapositive, the converse, and the inverse of the

conditional statement.
“we go to the beach whenever it is sunny”
Which one is equivalent to the statement?

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Logical operators: Bi-conditional 1

A bi-conditional means “p if and only if q”. The statement is
true when p and q have the same truth value…
Symbol: 
Alternatively, it means
“(if p then q) and (if q then p)” p q pq
T T T
Note that a bi-conditional T F F
has the opposite truth values
of the XOR F T F
 Also note that p ↔ q has exactly F F T
the same truth value as
(p → q) ∧ (q → p).

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Logical operators: Bi-conditional 2

Let p = “You can take the flight” and q = “You buy a ticket”

Then pq means p q pq

“You can take the flight if T T T
and only if you buy a ticket”
T F F
The statement is false when F T F
p and q have opposite truth values
F F T

There are some other common ways to express p ↔ q:

 “p is necessary and sufficient for q”
 “if p then q, and conversely”
 “p iff q.”
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Boolean operators summary

NOT NOT AND OR XOR Conditional Bi-conditional
p q p q pq pq pq pq pq
T T F F T T F T T
T F F T F T T F F
F T T F F T T T F
F F T T F F F T T

Learn what they mean, don’t just memorize the table!

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Translating English Sentences

Example
 p = “It is below freezing”
 q = “It is snowing”

It is below freezing and it is snowing pq

It is below freezing but not snowing p¬q
It is not below freezing and it is not snowing ¬p¬q
It is either snowing or below freezing (or both) pq
If it is below freezing, it is also snowing p→q

It is either below freezing or it is snowing, (p XOR q)

but it is not snowing if it is below freezing (p→¬q)

That it is below freezing is necessary and p↔q

sufficient for it to be snowing
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Translation Example 2
Heard on the radio:
 A study showed that there was a correlation between the more
children ate dinners with their families and lower rate of
substance abuse by those children

 Announcer conclusions (if …. then…..) :

 If children eat more meals with their family, they will have
lower substance abuse
 If they have a higher substance abuse rate, then they did not
eat more meals with their family

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Translation Example 3
You can access the Internet from campus only if you are
a computer science major or you are not a freshman.
a  (c   f)

You cannot ride the roller coaster if you are under 4 feet
tall unless you are older than 16 years old.
(f   o)   r
r  ( f  o)

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System specs
System specifications should be consistent, that is, they should
not contain conflicting requirements that could be used to derive
a contradiction.
 When specifications are not consistent, there would be no way to
develop a system that satisfies all specifications.
Determine whether these system specifications are consistent:
 “The diagnostic message is stored in the buffer or it is
retransmitted.”
 “The diagnostic message is not stored in the buffer.”
 “If the diagnostic message is stored in the buffer, then it is
retransmitted.”
What happens if we add “The diagnostic message is not
retransmitted”?

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Logic circuits
Propositional logic can be applied to the design of computer
hardware.
A logic circuit (or digital circuit)
 receives input signals p1, p2, . . . , pn, each bit is either 0 (off) or 1
(on), and
 produces output signals s1, s2, . . . , sn, each a bit.

Complicated digital circuits can be constructed from

three basic circuits, called gates

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Logic circuits (cont.)

Find the output of each of these combinatorial circuits

Build a digital circuit that on input p, q, and r produces the

output (p ∨￢r) ∧ (￢p ∨ (q ∨￢r))

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Compound statements
We can use the connectives to build compound propositions
involving any number of propositional variables.
 We can use truth tables to determine the truth values of these
compound propositions.
 Construct the truth table of the compound proposition
(p ∨￢q) → (p ∧ q)

p q q (p ∨￢q) p∧q (p ∨￢q) → (p ∧ q)

T T F T T T
T F T T F F
F T F F F T
F F T T F F

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Tautology, Contradiction, Equivalence

Tautology: a statement that’s always true
 p   p will always be true

Contradiction: a statement that’s always false

 p   p will always be false

A logical equivalence means that the two sides always have

the same truth values. One way to determine whether two
statements are equivalent is to use truth tables.
 Symbol is ≡ or  (we’ll use ≡)

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Examples
Identity law p  T  p

p T pT
T T T
F T F

Commutative law pqqp

p q pq qp
T T T T
T F F F
F T F F
F F F F

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Examples
Prove De Morgan’s laws shown
alongside:
 These laws are very important.
They tell us how to negate
conjunctions and how to negate
disjunction.

When using De Morgan’s laws, remember to change the logical

connective after you negate.
 Example: Use De Morgan’s laws to express the negations of
“Miguel has a cellphone and he has a laptop computer” and
“Heather will go to the concert or Steve will go to the concert.”

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Examples
Associative law (p  q)  r  p  (q  r)

p q r pq (pq)r qr p(qr)

T T T T T T T
T T F T F F F
T F T F F F F
T F F F F F F
F T T F F T F
F T F F F F F
F F T F F F F
F F F F F F F

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Logical Equivalences
pTp (p  q)  r  p  (q  r)
Identity Laws Associative laws
pFp (p  q)  r  p  (q  r)
pTT p  (q  r)  (p  q)  (p  r)
Domination Law Distributive laws
pFF p  (q  r)  (p  q)  (p  r)

ppp Idempotent  (p  q)   p   q De Morgan’s

ppp Laws  (p  q)   p   q laws

Double p  (p  q)  p
( p)  p negation law
Absorption laws
p  (p  q)  p

pqqp Commutative ppT

Negation laws
pqqp Laws ppF

Definition of Definition of
pq  pq Implication p  q  (p  q)  (q  p) Biconditional

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Proof using Logical Equivalences

(p  r)  (q  r)
 ( p  r)  ( q  r) Definition of implication
 prqr Associative
 pqrr Commutative
 ( p   q)  (r  r) Associative
  (p  q)  r De Morgan, Idempotent

 (p  q)  r Definition of implication

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Example
Show that (p  q)  (p  q) is a Tautology.

(p  q)  (p  q)
  (p  q)  (p  q) Implication
 ( p   q)  (p  q) De Morgan
 ( p  p)  ( q  q) Commutative, Associative
TT Negation
T

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Satisfiability
A compound proposition is satisfiable if there is an
assignment of truth values to its variables that makes it
true.
When no such assignments exists, that is, when the
compound proposition is false for all assignments of truth
values to its variables, the compound proposition is
unsatisfiable.

How can we show that a compound proposition is

unsatisfiable?
Answer: We need to show that every assignment of truth
values to its variables makes it false.

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Satisfiability (cont.)
Determine whether each of the following compound
propositions is satisfiable. Do not use truth tables

 (p ∨￢q) ∧ (q ∨￢r) ∧ (r ∨￢p) YES

 (p ∨ q ∨ r) ∧ (￢p ∨￢q ∨￢r) YES

 (p ∨￢q) ∧ (q ∨￢r) ∧ (r ∨￢p) ∧(p ∨ q ∨ r) ∧ (￢p ∨￢q ∨￢r) NO

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Example
At a trial:
 Bill says: “Sue is guilty and Fred is innocent.”
 Sue says: “If Bill is guilty, then so is Fred.”
 Fred says: “I am innocent, but at least one of the others is guilty.”

Let b = Bill is innocent, f = Fred is innocent, and s = Sue is

innocent
Statements are:
 ¬s  f
 ¬b → ¬f
 f  (¬b  ¬s)

Can all of their statements be true???

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Example (cnt)
(s  f)  (b  f)  (f  (b  s))

LHS  ( s  f)  (b   f)  (f  ( b   s))
 (( s  f)  (f  ( b   s)))  (b   f)
 ( s  f  ( b   s))  (b   f)
 (( s  f   b)  ( s  f))  (b   f)
 ( s  f)  (b   f)
 ( s  f  b)  s  f   f)
 ( s  f  b) F
sfb

So what is the conclusion?

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Predicates and Quantifiers

Propositional logic, studied so far, cannot adequately express
the meaning of all statements in mathematics and in natural
language.

Suppose we know
 “Every computer connected to the university network is
functioning properly.”
No rule of propositional logic allow us to conclude the truth of
the statement
 “CpE server 3 is functioning properly”

We will introduce a more powerful type of logic called

predicate logic
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Predicates
Statements involving variables, such as
“x > 3,” “x = y + 3,” “x + y = z,” and
“computer x is under attack by an intruder,”
are often found in mathematical assertions, in computer
programs, and in system specifications.

These statements are neither true nor false when the values
of the variables are not specified.

We will now discuss the ways that propositions can be

produced from such statements.

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Predicates
Consider the statement “x is greater than 3”
 x: subject
 “is greater than 3”: predicate
 P(x): propositional function P at x

P(x) = x + 5 > 10

variable predicate

A predicate refers to a property that the subject of the

statement can have.
 P(x) can be true or false depending on the value of x.

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Quantifiers (cont.)
Let P(x) denote the statement “x > 3.” What are the truth
values of P(4) and P(2)?

We can also have statements that involve more than one

variable.
 Consider the statement “x = y + 3.”
 We can denote this statement by Q(x, y), where x and y are
variables and Q is the predicate.
 When values are assigned to the variables x and y, the statement
Q(x, y) has a truth value.

What are the truth values of the propositions Q(1, 2) and

Q(3, 0)?
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Quantifiers
Quantification is another way to create a proposition from a
propositional function.
 Quantification expresses the extent to which a predicate is true
over a range of elements.
 In English, the words all, some, many, none, and few are used in
quantifications.

A quantifier is “an operator that limits the variables of a

proposition”.
 Quantification expresses the extent to which a predicate is true
over a range of elements.
 Two types: Universal, Existential

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Universal quantifiers 1
The universal quantification of P(x) is the statement “P(x) for
all values of x in the domain.”
Represented by an upside-down A: 
 It means “for all”
 Let P(x) = x+1 > x

We can state the following:

 x P(x)
 English translation: “for all values of x, P(x) is true”
 English translation: “for all values of x, x+1>x is true”

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Universal quantifiers 2
But is that always true?
 x P(x)
Let x = the character ‘a’
 Is ‘a’+1 > ‘a’?
Let x = Kuwait
 Is Kuwait+1 > Kuwait?

You need to specify the universe where x takes values

 What values x can represent
 Called the “domain” or “universe of discourse”

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Universal quantifiers 3
Let the universe be the real numbers.

Let P(x) = x/2 < x. Is it true?

 Not true for the negative numbers!
 Thus, x P(x) is false
 When the domain is all the real numbers

In order to prove that a universal quantification is true, it must

be shown for ALL cases in the domain.

What does it take to prove that a universal quantification is

false?
 It must be shown to be false for only ONE case

What about when P(x) is “x2 > 0” and x is an integer?

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Universal quantification 4
Given some propositional function P(x) and values in the
universe x1 … xn

The universal quantification x P(x) is a shorthand for

P(x1)  P(x2)  …  P(xn)

because this conjunction is true if and only if P(x1), P(x2), . . . ,

P (xn) are all true

Example: What is the truth value of ∀xP(x), where P(x) is the

statement “x2 < 10” and the domain consists of the positive
integers not exceeding 4?
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Existential quantification 1
Represented by an backwards E: 
 It means “there exists”
 Let P(x) = x+1 > x

We can state the following:

 x P(x)
 English translation: “there exists (a value of) x such that P(x) is
true”
 English translation: “for at least one value of x, x+1>x is true”

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Existential quantification 2
Note that you still have to specify your universe/domain

Let P(x) denote the statement “x > 3.” What is the truth value
of the quantification ∃xP(x), where the domain consists of all
real numbers?

Let P(x) = x+1 < x

 There is no numerical value x for which x+1<x
 Thus, x P(x) is false

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Existential quantification 3
Let P(x) = x+1 > x
 There is a numerical value for which x+1>x
 In fact, it’s true for all of the values of x!
 Thus,  x P(x) is true

In order to show an existential quantification is true, you only

have to find ONE value
In order to show an existential quantification is false, you have
to show it’s false for ALL values

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Existential quantification 4
Given some propositional function P(x) and values in the
universe x1 .. xn, what “x P(x)” is a shorthand for?

The existential quantification x P(x) is a shorthand for:

P(x1)  P(x2)  …  P(xn)

Example: What is the truth value of ∃xP(x), where P(x) is the

statement “x2 > 10” and the domain consists of the positive
integers not exceeding 3?

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Quantifiers – Summary
It is sometimes helpful to think in terms of looping and
searching when determining the truth value of a quantification.
Suppose that there are n objects in the domain for the
variable x.
 To determine whether ∀xP(x) is true, we can loop through all n
values of x to see whether P(x) is always true.
 If we encounter a value x for which P(x) is false, then we have
shown that ∀xP(x) is false. Otherwise, ∀xP(x) is true.
 To see whether ∃xP(x) is true, we loop through the n values of x
searching for a value for which P(x) is true.
 If we find one, then ∃xP(x) is true. If we never find such an x, then
we have determined that ∃xP(x) is false.
 Does not work for infinite number of objects n

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Binding variables
Let P(x,y) be x > y

Consider: x P(x,y)
 Is this a proposition? Why?
 What is y?
 If it’s 5, then x P(x,y) is false
 If it’s x-1, then x P(x,y) is true

Note that y is not “bound” by a quantifier

 When a quantifier is used on the variable x, we say that this occurrence
of the variable is bound. Otherwise it is a free variable.

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Binding variables game…

(x P(x))  Q(x)
 The x in Q(x) is not bound; thus not a proposition

(x P(x))  (x Q(x))

 Both values are bound; thus it is a proposition

(x P(x)  Q(x))  (y R(y))

 All variables are bound; thus it is a proposition

(x P(x)  Q(y))  (y R(y))

 The y in Q(y) is not bound; this not a proposition

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Negating quantifications
Consider the statement:
 All students in this class have red hair

What is required to show the statement is false?

 There exists a student in this class that does NOT have red hair

To negate a universal quantification:

 You negate the propositional function
 AND you change to an existential quantification

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Negating quantifications 2
Consider the statement:
 There is a student in this class with red hair

What is required to show the statement is false?

 All students in this class do not have red hair

Thus, to negate an existential quantification:

 To negate the propositional function
 AND you change to a universal quantification

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De Morgan’s law for quantifiers

What are the negations of the statements

∀x(x2 > x) and ∃x(x2 = 2)?

What would be the negation of ∀x(P(x) → Q(x)) ?

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Quantification of two variables

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Order matters
Let Q(x, y) denote “x + y = 0.”
 What are the truth values of the quantifications ∃y∀xQ(x, y) and
∀x∃yQ(x, y), where the domain for all variables consists of all
real numbers?

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