Which one is reflexive, symmetric and transitive I am doing an exercise where I need to find which

Devin Anderson

Devin Anderson

Answered question

2022-06-22

Which one is reflexive, symmetric and transitive
I am doing an exercise where I need to find which one of the statements under are reflexive, symmetric and transitive. I will write what I think for each of the statements, could someone see if I am thinking right
Our domain is all real numbers:
a) x + y = 0
This one is reflexive only for (0,0) but not for all real numbers, it is symmetric for (0,0) but not for all real numbers, but I dont know how to see if it is symmetrical.
b) x = ± y. This is not reflexive for domain R, because (1,1) not true I dont know how to see if its not symmetrical or not.
c) x = 2 y. Not reflexive, (1,1) not true to find symmetric do we do it like this? x = 2 y > x / 2 = y means not symmetric dont know how to find transitive.
d) x y 0. Not reflexive, (1,1) not treu symmetric because xy, y x transitive?
e) x y = 0 same as d)
f) x = 1   or   y = 1. Not sure what to do

Answer & Explanation

Bruno Hughes

Bruno Hughes

Beginner2022-06-23Added 24 answers

Step 1
a) It's not reflexive but symmetric because addition is commutative: x + y = 0 y + x = 0. It's not transitive: for that it's enough to show up a specific counterexample, like ( 2 , 2 ) R ,   ( 2 , 2 ) R while ( 2 , 2 ) R where R denotes the relation defined in the exercise.
Step 2
b) I think it's meant as R = { ( x , y ) : x = y or x = y }. It's reflexive, symmetric and also transitive. To see these more directly we can restate R = { ( x , y ) : | x | = | y | }.
Step 3
c) It's not reflexive, not symmetric ( ( 1 , 2 ) R but ( 2 , 1 ) R, and not even transitive: ( 1 , 2 ) ,   ( 2 , 4 ) R but ( 1 , 4 ) R.
Step 4
d) It's reflexive: for every real number x we have x x 0. It's also symmetric because multiplication is commutative, but it's not transitive: can you find three elements to witness this like above?
Step 5
e) It's not reflexive: e.g. ( 1 , 1 ) R = { ( x , y ) : x y = 0 } but symmetric, and also not transitive.
Step 6
f) It's very similar to e) because x y = 0 x = 0 or y = 0. Now (1,1) happens to be in R = { ( x , y ) : x = 1 or y = 1 } but no other (x,x) pair, e.g. ( 2 , 2 ) R.
enrotlavaec

enrotlavaec

Beginner2022-06-24Added 3 answers

Explanation:
I think you should take a look at the definition of these 3 possible properties of relations on R again. The relation x y x + y = 0 is indeed symmetric, since x + y = 0 y + x = 0. I don't think this is the place to spoil all the answers, taking away from you the chance to think about it again.

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