Inequalities

Reference

A={xproperty}A = \{ x | property \}

  • N\mathbb{N} is the set of Natural numbers (positive integers including zero).

  • Z\mathbb{Z} is the set of Integers numbers (also negative).

  • Q\mathbb{Q} is the set of Rational numbers (fractionals).

  • \cup is the union operator symbol.

  • \cap is the intersection operator symbol.

  • \setminus is the union difference symbol.

  • \in is the "belongs to set" symbol.

  • \subset is the "strict subset of" symbol. (inverted in \supset)

  • \subseteq is the "subset of or equal" symbol. (inverted in \supseteq)

  • A|A| is the "cardinality" of set A, how many elements A is composed of.

  • A×B|A\times B| is the "cartesian product" of sets A and B. It is made of elements (a,b)(a,b), where aAa \in A and bBb \in B, with all possible combinations.

  • aRba R b is equal to (a,b)R(a,b) \in R, and R is a relation, a subset of the cartesian products of the sets where a and b take their values from. It can also be expressed as R(a,b)R(a,b).


  • A statement "A" can be only True or False

  • \lor is logical or

  • \land is the logical and

  • ¬A\lnot A indicates the negation of "A"

  • x(statment)\exists x(statment) indicates that the "x" present in the statement is a variable that makes the statement True for "at least" a value of x.

  • x(statment)\forall x(statment) indicates that the "x" present in the statement is a variable that makes the statement True for "all possible" values of x.

  • A    BA \iff B is a "if and only if", making A and B having the same truth value.

  • ABA \rightarrow B is a "A implies B", when A is True, B has to be True as well.

Here's a recap of some properties:

  • Commutativity: ab=baa \circ b = b \circ a

  • Associativity: x(yz)=(xy)z=xyz x \circ (y \circ z) = (x \circ y) \circ z = x \circ y \circ z

  • Identity element e: ex(xe=ex=x)\exists e \forall x (x \circ e = e \circ x = x)

  • Zero element e: ex(xe=ex=e) \exists e \forall x (x \circ e = e \circ x = e)

  • Distributive: x(yz)=(xy)(xz) x \circ (y \Box z) = (x \circ y) \Box (x \circ z)

  • Inverse: x(yz)=(xy)(xz) x \circ (y \Box z) = (x \circ y) \Box (x \circ z)


  • Addition: Commutative, Associative, Identity on 00

  • Subtraction: Inverse of Addition

  • Multiplication: Commutatiive, Associative, Identity on 11, Zero element on 00, Distributive over Addition

  • Division: Inverse of Multiplication, Distributive over Addition (and Subtraction)

Inequalities

Basic model

We now introduce the concept of inequality. In the most basic form, an inequality is the definition of an order between the numbers (or elements of our set), that gives some structure to the elements in relation to each other.

Let's be a bit less abstract and give the most basic example:

3<5 3 < 5

This means that the number 3 is "less than" the number 5. In our unary notation with "xs" or "s(s(s(...." it would simply indicate the number with the most amount of "s" or "x". As the definition feels a bit circular, as it requires the sense of the word "most", we can give a more difficult but less dependent on previous definitions.

a<b a < b

It means that if we were to count up starting from the number "a", we would reach "b" only after counting up bab-a times. If "b" and "a" are not known, we only know that we'll reach someday "b" starting from "a" and counting up (therefore bab-a is also unknown).

In the previous example this means that we take our "3" and count up, sure that one day we'll reach "5". This happens exactly after counting up "5-3" times.

Adding and removing a value from both sides of the inequality does not change its value. Instead, multiplying can change the truth value of the inequality when the value we multiply by is negative. As an example:

3<5 3 < 5 3(1)<5(1) 3*(-1) < 5*(-1) 3<5 -3 < -5

But if we were to count up from "-3", we would reach instead "-2","-1","0",... without ever reaching "-5". Therefore the order inverts when multiplying by negative.

3>5 -3 > -5

The >> symbol is the same as the << symbol, except with its arguments inverted. There exist also the "or equal variants", where \leq means "less or equal", while \geq means "greater or equal". These allows inequalities to set "less strict" boundaries, rather than being strictly superior.

With variables

Introducing "x" into the mix, we can now have expressions as

3<x<5 3 < x < 5

where the true "logical form" would be expressed as

3<xx<5 3 < x \land x < 5

So we separate the two << symbols, into two inequalities, and can treat each separately. By the way, this also was the case for equality, as

3=x=2+13=x=2+1

is simply a conjunction (logical and) with the following written form

3=xx=2+13=x \land x=2+1

To Still Finish

CC BY-SA 4.0 Anwill. Last modified: January 13, 2025. Website built with Franklin.jl and the Julia programming language.