Show that the relation R consisting of all pairs (x, y) such that x and y are bit strings of length three or more that agree in their first three bits is an equivalence relation on the set of all bit strings of length three or more.

Jonah Jacobson

Jonah Jacobson

Answered question

2022-09-04

Show that the relation R consisting of all pairs (x, y) such that x and y are bit strings of length three or more that agree in their first three bits is an equivalence relation on the set of all bit strings of length three or more.
I am new to this kind of math, and what I am stuck at is how do I convert (x,y) into strings of bits?
Thus far I have made the sets: R = { ( x , x ) , ( x , y ) , ( y , x ) , ( y , y ) } but I need to make them into strings of length three or more. Do I just pick random 1's and 0's???

Answer & Explanation

Medwsa1c

Medwsa1c

Beginner2022-09-05Added 17 answers

Step 1
Reflexive: xRx for all x. Clearly x and x share the same 3 starting bits as they are the same bit string. Therefore the reflexive property is satisfied.
Symmetric: if xRy then yRx: Now if x shares the same first the 3 bit as y, then clearly y shares the same first 3 as x. Symmetric property is satisfied.
Transitive: if xRy and yRz then xRz. Let x,y be bit strings that share the same first 3 bits, similarly, y,z are bit strings that share the same first 3 bits. It is clear that if x and y share the same first 3 bits, and if y and z share the same first 3 bits, then x and z must share the same first three bits
We have now proved that the relation R is an equivalence relation.
Step 2
Example
Let's take an example to visualize. Take any 3 bit strings such that they share the same first 3 bits.
Let x = 101110..., y = 101011..., z = 101000..
Now we can visually see that xRx is clearly true as x and x share the same first 3 bits.
We can also see that symmetric property holds.
Lastly, we can see that if x has the same first 3 bits as y and y has the same first 3 bits as z then x and z share the same first 3

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