Discrete Mathematics:

An Open Introduction, 3rd

edition Custom Search
Oscar Levin

0.2 Mathematical
Statements
¶

Investigate!
While walking through a fictional forest,
you encounter three trolls guarding a
bridge. Each is either a knight, who always
tells the truth, or a knave, who always lies.
The trolls will not let you pass until you
correctly identify each as either a knight or
a knave. Each troll makes a single
statement:

Troll 1: If I am a knave, then

there are exactly two knights
here.

Troll 2: Troll 1 is lying.

Troll 3: Either we are all knaves

or at least one of us is a knight.

Which troll is which?

In order to do mathematics, we must be able

to talk and write about mathematics. Perhaps
your experience with mathematics so far has
mostly involved finding answers to problems.
As we embark towards more advanced and
abstract mathematics, writing will play a more
prominent role in the mathematical process.

Communication in mathematics requires more

precision than many other subjects, and thus
we should take a few pages here to consider
the basic building blocks: mathematical
statements.

Atomic and Molecular

Statements
¶
A statement is any declarative sentence which
is either true or false. A statement is atomic if
it cannot be divided into smaller statements,
otherwise it is called molecular.

Example 0.2.1.  These are statements (in

fact, atomic statements):

Telephone numbers in the USA have 10

digits.
The moon is made of cheese.
42 is a perfect square.
Every even number greater than 2 can
be expressed as the sum of two primes.
3 + 7 = 12

And these are not statements:

Would you like some cake?

The sum of two squares.
1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + ⋯ + 2 n + 1.
Go to your room!
3 + x = 12

The reason the sentence “3 + x = 12 ” is not a

statement is that it contains a variable.
Depending on what x is, the sentence is either
true or false, but right now it is neither. One
way to make the sentence into a statement is to
specify the value of the variable in some way.
This could be done by specifying a specific
substitution, for example, “3 + x = 12 where
x = 9 ,” which is a true statement. Or you could
capture the free variable by quantifying over it,
as in, “for all values of x, 3 + x = 12 ,” which is
false. We will discuss quantifiers in more detail
at the end of this section.

You can build more complicated (molecular)

statements out of simpler (atomic or
molecular) ones using logical connectives. For
example, this is a molecular statement:

Telephone numbers in the USA have

10 digits and 42 is a perfect square.

Note that we can break this down into two

smaller statements. The two shorter
statements are connected by an “and.” We will
consider 5 connectives: “and” (Sam is a man
and Chris is a woman), “or” (Sam is a man or
Chris is a woman), “if…, then…” (if Sam is a
man, then Chris is a woman), “if and only if”
(Sam is a man if and only if Chris is a woman),
and “not” (Sam is not a man). The first four are
called binary connectives (because they
connect two statements) while “not” is an
example of a unary connective (since it applies
to a single statement).

These molecular statements are of course still

statements, so they must be either true or
false. The absolutely key observation here is
that which truth value the molecular
statement achieves is completely determined
by the type of connective and the truth values
of the parts. We do not need to know what the
parts actually say, only whether those parts are
true or false. So to analyze logical connectives,
it is enough to consider propositional
variables (sometimes called sentential
variables), usually capital letters in the middle
of the alphabet: P , Q, R, S, … . We think of
these as standing in for (usually atomic)
statements, but there are only two values the
variables can achieve: true or false.  1  We also
have symbols for the logical connectives: ∧, ∨,
→ , ↔ , ¬.

Logical Connectives. 
P ∧ Q is read “P and Q,” and called a
conjunction.
P ∨ Q is read “P or Q,” and called a
disjunction.
P → Q is read “if P then Q,” and
called an implication or conditional.
P ↔ Q is read “P if and only if Q,” and
called a biconditional.
¬P is read “not P ,” and called a
negation.

The truth value of a statement is determined

by the truth value(s) of its part(s), depending
on the connectives:

Truth Conditions for Connectives. 

P ∧ Q is true when both P and Q are
true
P ∨ Q is true when P or Q or both are
true.
P → Q is true when P is false or Q is
true or both.
P ↔ Q is true when P and Q are both
true, or both false.
¬P is true when P is false.

Note that for us, or is the inclusive or (and not

the sometimes used exclusive or) meaning that
P ∨ Q is in fact true when both P and Q are
true. As for the other connectives, “and”
behaves as you would expect, as does
negation. The biconditional (if and only if)
might seem a little strange, but you should
think of this as saying the two parts of the
statements are equivalent in that they have the
same truth value. This leaves only the
conditional P → Q which has a slightly
different meaning in mathematics than it does
in ordinary usage. However, implications are
so common and useful in mathematics, that
we must develop fluency with their use, and as
such, they deserve their own subsection.

Implications ¶

Implications. 
An implication or conditional is a molecular
statement of the form

P →Q

where P and Q are statements. We say that

P is the hypothesis (or antecedent).

Q is the conclusion (or consequent).

An implication is true provided P is false or

Q is true (or both), and false otherwise. In
particular, the only way for P → Q to be
false is for P to be true and Q to be false.

Easily the most common type of statement in

mathematics is the implication. Even
statements that do not at first look like they
have this form conceal an implication at their
heart. Consider the Pythagorean Theorem.
Many a college freshman would quote this
theorem as “a2 + b2 = c2 .” This is absolutely
not correct. For one thing, that is not a
statement since it has three variables in it.
Perhaps they imply that this should be true for
any values of the variables? So 12 + 5 2 = 2 2 ???
How can we fix this? Well, the equation is true
as long as a and b are the legs or a right
triangle and c is the hypotenuse. In other
words:

If a and b are the legs of a right

☰ <
triangle with hypotenuse c, then
a 2 + b2 = c 2 . ^ >
This is a reasonable way to think about
implications: our claim is that the conclusion
(“then” part) is true, but on the assumption
that the hypothesis (“if” part) is true. We make
no claim about the conclusion in situations
when the hypothesis is false.  2 

Still, it is important to remember that an

implication is a statement, and therefore is
either true or false. The truth value of the
implication is determined by the truth values
of its two parts. To agree with the usage above,
we say that an implication is true either when
the hypothesis is false, or when the conclusion
is true. This leaves only one way for an
implication to be false: when the hypothesis is
true and the conclusion is false.

Example 0.2.2.  Consider the statement:

If Bob gets a 90 on the final, then

Bob will pass the class.

This is definitely an implication: P is the

statement “Bob gets a 90 on the final,” and Q
is the statement “Bob will pass the class.”

Suppose I made that statement to Bob. In

what circumstances would it be fair to call me
a liar? What if Bob really did get a 90 on the
final, and he did pass the class? Then I have
not lied; my statement is true. However, if
Bob did get a 90 on the final and did not pass
the class, then I lied, making the statement
false. The tricky case is this: what if Bob did
not get a 90 on the final? Maybe he passes the
class, maybe he doesn't. Did I lie in either
case? I think not. In these last two cases, P
was false, and the statement P → Q was true.
In the first case, Q was true, and so was
P → Q. So P → Q is true when either P is
false or Q is true.

Just to be clear, although we sometimes read

P → Q as “P implies Q”, we are not insisting
that there is some causal relationship between
the statements P and Q. In particular, if you
claim that P → Q is false, you are not saying
that P does not imply Q, but rather that P is
true and Q is false.

Example 0.2.3.  Decide which of the

following statements are true and which are
false. Briefly explain.

1. If 1 = 1, then most horses have 4 legs.

2. If 0 = 1, then 1 = 1.
3. If 8 is a prime number, then the 7624th
digit of π is an 8.
4. If the 7624th digit of π is an 8, then
2 +2 =4.
► Solution

It is important to understand the conditions

under which an implication is true not only to
decide whether a mathematical statement is
true, but in order to prove that it is. Proofs
might seem scary (especially if you have had a
bad high school geometry experience) but all
we are really doing is explaining (very carefully)
why a statement is true. If you understand the
truth conditions for an implication, you already
have the outline for a proof.

Direct Proofs of Implications. 

To prove an implication P → Q, it is enough
to assume P , and from it, deduce Q.

Perhaps a better way to say this is that to

prove a statement of the form P → Q directly,
you must explain why Q is true, but you get to
assume P is true first. After all, you only care
about whether Q is true in the case that P is as
well.

There are other techniques to prove

statements (implications and others) that we
will encounter throughout our studies, and
new proof techniques are discovered all the
time. Direct proof is the easiest and most
elegant style of proof and has the advantage
that such a proof often does a great job of
explaining why the statement is true.

Example 0.2.4.  Prove: If two numbers a and

b are even, then their sum a + b is even.
► Solution

This sort of argument shows up outside of

math as well. If you ever found yourself
starting an argument with “hypothetically, let's
assume …,” then you have attempted a direct
proof of your desired conclusion.

An implication is a way of expressing a

relationship between two statements. It is
often interesting to ask whether there are
other relationships between the statements.
Here we introduce some common language to
address this question.

Converse and Contrapositive. 

The converse of an implication P → Q
is the implication Q → P . The
converse is NOT logically equivalent to
the original implication. That is,
whether the converse of an
implication is true is independent of
the truth of the implication.
The contrapositive of an implication
P → Q is the statement ¬Q → ¬P . An
implication and its contrapositive are
logically equivalent (they are either
both true or both false).

Mathematics is overflowing with examples of

true implications which have a false converse.
If a number greater than 2 is prime, then that
number is odd. However, just because a
number is odd does not mean it is prime. If a
shape is a square, then it is a rectangle. But it
is false that if a shape is a rectangle, then it is a
square.

However, sometimes the converse of a true

statement is also true. For example, the
Pythagorean theorem has a true converse: if
a2 + b2 = c2 , then the triangle with sides a, b,
and c is a right triangle. Whenever you
encounter an implication in mathematics, it is
always reasonable to ask whether the
converse is true.

The contrapositive, on the other hand, always

has the same truth value as its original
implication. This can be very helpful in deciding
whether an implication is true: often it is easier
to analyze the contrapositive.

Example 0.2.5.  True or false: If you draw

any nine playing cards from a regular deck,
then you will have at least three cards all of
the same suit. Is the converse true?
► Solution

Understanding converses and contrapositives

can help understand implications and their
truth values:

Example 0.2.6.  Suppose I tell Sue that if she

gets a 93% on her final, then she will get an A
in the class. Assuming that what I said is true,
what can you conclude in the following cases:

1. Sue gets a 93% on her final.

2. Sue gets an A in the class.
3. Sue does not get a 93% on her final.
4. Sue does not get an A in the class.
► Solution

As we said above, an implication is not logically

equivalent to its converse, but it is possible
that both the implication and its converse are
true. In this case, when both P → Q and
Q → P are true, we say that P and Q are
equivalent and write P ↔ Q. This is the
biconditional we mentioned earlier.

If and only if. 

P ↔ Q is logically equivalent to
(P → Q) ∧ (Q → P ).

Example: Given an integer n, it is true that n

is even if and only if n2 is even. That is, if n
is even, then n2 is even, as well as the
converse: if n2 is even, then n is even.

You can think of “if and only if” statements as

having two parts: an implication and its
converse. We might say one is the “if” part, and
the other is the “only if” part. We also
sometimes say that “if and only if” statements
have two directions: a forward direction
(P → Q) and a backwards direction (P ← Q,
which is really just sloppy notation for Q → P ).

Let's think a little about which part is which. Is

P → Q the “if” part or the “only if” part?
Consider an example.

Example 0.2.7.  Suppose it is true that I sing

if and only if I'm in the shower. We know this
means both that if I sing, then I'm in the
shower, and also the converse, that if I'm in
the shower, then I sing. Let P be the
statement, “I sing,” and Q be, “I'm in the
shower.” So P → Q is the statement “if I sing,
then I'm in the shower.” Which part of the if
and only if statement is this?

What we are really asking for is the meaning

of “I sing if I'm in the shower” and “I sing only if
I'm in the shower.” When is the first one (the
“if” part) false? When I am in the shower but
not singing. That is the same condition on
being false as the statement “if I'm in the
shower, then I sing.” So the “if” part is Q → P .
On the other hand, to say, “I sing only if I'm in
the shower” is equivalent to saying “if I sing,
then I'm in the shower,” so the “only if” part is
P → Q.

It is not terribly important to know which part

is the “if” or “only if” part, but this does
illustrate something very, very important: there
are many ways to state an implication!

Example 0.2.8.  Rephrase the implication, “if

I dream, then I am asleep” in as many
different ways as possible. Then do the same
for the converse.
► Solution

Hopefully you agree with the above example.

We include the “necessary and sufficient”
versions because those are common when
discussing mathematics. In fact, let's agree
once and for all what they mean.

Necessary and Sufficient. 

“P is necessary for Q” means Q → P .
“P is sufficient for Q” means P → Q.
If P is necessary and sufficient for Q,
then P ↔ Q.

To be honest, I have trouble with these if I'm

not very careful. I find it helps to keep a
standard example for reference.

Example 0.2.9.  Recall from calculus, if a

function is differentiable at a point c, then it is
continuous at c, but that the converse of this
statement is not true (for example, f(x) = |x|
at the point 0). Restate this fact using
“necessary and sufficient” language.
► Solution

Thinking about the necessity and sufficiency of

conditions can also help when writing proofs
and justifying conclusions. If you want to
establish some mathematical fact, it is helpful
to think what other facts would be enough (be
sufficient) to prove your fact. If you have an
assumption, think about what must also be
necessary if that hypothesis is true.

Predicates and Quantifiers ¶

Investigate!
Consider the statements below. Decide
whether any are equivalent to each other,
or whether any imply any others.

1. You can fool some people all of the

time.
2. You can fool everyone some of the
time.
3. You can always fool some people.
4. Sometimes you can fool everyone.

It would be nice to use variables in our

mathematical sentences. For example,
suppose we wanted to claim that if n is prime,
then n + 7 is not prime. This looks like an
implication. I would like to write something like

P (n) → ¬P (n + 7 )

where P (n) means “n is prime.” But this is not

quite right. For one thing, because this
sentence has a free variable (that is, a variable
that we have not specified anything about), it is
not a statement. A sentence that contains
variables is called a predicate.

Now, if we plug in a specific value for n, we do

get a statement. In fact, it turns out that no
matter what value we plug in for n, we get a
true implication in this case. What we really
want to say is that for all values of n, if n is
prime, then n + 7 is not. We need to quantify
the variable.

Although there are many types of quantifiers in

English (e.g., many, few, most, etc.) in
mathematics we, for the most part, stick to
two: existential and universal.

Universal and Existential

Quantifiers. 
The existential quantifier is ∃ and is read
“there exists” or “there is.” For example,

∃x(x < 0 )

asserts that there is a number less than 0.

The universal quantifier is ∀ and is read “for

all” or “every.” For example,

∀x(x ≥ 0 )

asserts that every number is greater than

or equal to 0.

As with all mathematical statements, we would

like to decide whether quantified statements
are true or false. Consider the statement

∀x∃y(y < x).

You would read this, “for every x there is some

y such that y is less than x.” Is this true? The
answer depends on what our domain of
discourse is: when we say “for all” x, do we
mean all positive integers or all real numbers
or all elements of some other set? Usually this
information is implied. In discrete
mathematics, we almost always quantify over
the natural numbers, 0, 1, 2, …, so let's take that
for our domain of discourse here.

For the statement to be true, we need it to be

the case that no matter what natural number
we select, there is always some natural
number that is strictly smaller. Perhaps we
could let y be x − 1? But here is the problem:
what if x = 0 ? Then y = −1 and that is not a
number! (in our domain of discourse). Thus we
see that the statement is false because there is
a number which is less than or equal to all
other numbers. In symbols,

∃x∀y(y ≥ x).

To show that the original statement is false, we

proved that the negation was true. Notice how
the negation and original statement compare.
This is typical.

Quantifiers and Negation. 

¬∀xP (x) is equivalent to

∃x¬P (x).

¬∃xP (x) is equivalent to

∀x¬P (x).

Essentially, we can pass the negation symbol

over a quantifier, but that causes the quantifier
to switch type. This should not be surprising: if
not everything has a property, then something
doesn't have that property. And if there is not
something with a property, then everything
doesn't have that property.

Implicit Quantifiers.  It is always a good

idea to be precise in mathematics. Sometimes
though, we can relax a little bit, as long as we
all agree on a convention. An example of such
a convention is to assume that sentences
containing predicates with free variables are
intended as statements, where the variables
are universally quantified.

For example, do you believe that if a shape is a

square, then it is a rectangle? But how can that
be true if it is not a statement? To be a little
more precise, we have two predicates: S(x)
standing for “x is a square” and R(x) standing
for “x is a rectangle”. The sentence we are
looking at is,

S(x) → R(x).

This is neither true nor false, as it is not a

statement. But come on! We all know that we
meant to consider the statement,

∀x(S(x) → R(x)),

and this is what our convention tells us to

consider.

Similarly, we will often be a bit sloppy about

the distinction between a predicate and a
statement. For example, we might write, let
P (n) be the statement, “n is prime,” which is
technically incorrect. It is implicit that we mean
that we are defining P (n) to be a predicate,
which for each n becomes the statement, n is
prime.

Exercises ¶

1. 

For each sentence below, decide whether it

is an atomic statement, a molecular
statement, or not a statement at all.
a. Customers must wear shoes.
?

b. The customers wore shoes.

?

c. The customers wore shoes and they

wore socks.