"If" versus "and" in statements Let I(x) be the statement “x has an Internet connection”and C(x, y)

freakygirl838w

freakygirl838w

Answered question

2022-06-19

"If" versus "and" in statements
Let I(x) be the statement “x has an Internet connection”and C(x, y) be the statement “x and y have chatted over the Internet ”, where the universe of discourse for the variables x and y consists of all the students in your class. Use quantifiers to express each of these statements.
1. There is a student in your class who has chatted with everyone in your class over the Internet. Answer is: x y [ x y C ( x , y ) ]
2. There are at least two students in your class who have not chatted with the same person in your class. Answer is: x y [ x y z ¬ ( C ( x , z ) C ( y , z ) ) ]
I am confused about whether I should use "if" or "and". In the first question, "if" is used. In the second question "and" is used. But I would use "and" in the first statement.

Answer & Explanation

Amy Daniels

Amy Daniels

Beginner2022-06-20Added 20 answers

Step 1
Let's first do a different example:
Suppose I want to say that "All cubes are big"
Now, if I use:
x ( C u b e ( x ) B i g ( x ) )
then I end up saying that everything is a cube and big: clearly not what I want: just because all cubes are big does not mean that everything is a cube. What I want is that if something is a cube, then it is big, i.e. I need to first make sure that I restrict myself to all cubes before I say anything about them:
x ( C u b e ( x ) B i g ( x ) )
Step 2
Likewise, in your problem, if you use:
x y [ x y C ( x , y ) ]
Likewise, in your problem, if you use:
x y [ x y C ( x , y ) ]
you end up saying that for any y it is true that y x and that x has chatted with y: So now you end up saying that all students y are different from x ... which is obviously not the case, since x is not different from x.
So again, you first need to restrict the y to any student other than x before you say that x chatted with y. So that's why you use an : if y is someone other than x, then x will have chatted with y:
x y [ x y C ( x , y ) ]

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