Chapter 1

Introduction
Agenda
 Introduction
 Mathematical preliminaries and notations
 Relations between sets
 Set Operations
 Relation and function
 Graphs and Trees
 Proof techniques
 Proof by induction
 Proof by Contradiction
Introduction
 Computer science has two major components
I. The fundamental ideas and models
underlying computing
II. Engineering techniques for the design of
computing system (both hardware and
software)
 Automata and formal language is in the first
category
Introduction…
 Automata is an abstract model of a digital computer
 Automata theory is the study of abstract machine (a
theoretical model of a computer hardware and
software) and problems they are able to solve
 Language is a system suitable for the expression of
certain ideas, facts or concepts, including a set of
symbols and rules of formation
 There are two types of languages
 Natural language
 Formal language – developed by applying strict rules
(e.g. programming languages)
Introduction…
 Why we study Automata and formal language?
 To get concepts and principles that help us
understand the general nature of the discipline
 To construct abstract models of a computer
 It has immediate and important applications in
 compiler design
 programming languages
 software engineering
 artificial intelligence
 etc
 Fun by itself
Mathematical preliminaries and notations

 Set – is a (well-defined) collection of objects

 Examples
 A = {a, b, c, d} – complete listing method
 B= {1, 2, 3, …, 100} – partial listing method
 C = {x | x>0 and x is even} – set builder
notation
 Finite sets
 infinite sets
Relations between sets
 Subset (A z B)
 Let A and B be sets. A is a subset of B if every
element of A also belongs to B; that is,
A z B iff (Ax) (x e A  x e B).
 Proper subset (A c B)
 Let A and B be sets. A is a proper subset of B if
every element of A also belongs to B and B
contains at least one element which is not in A;
that is,
A c B iff (A z B and A Î B).
Relations between sets…
 Equality of sets (A=B)
 Two sets A and B are said to be equal if
they contain exactly the same elements;
i.e.
A = B iff (Ax) (x e A ¤ x e B).
 Equivalence of sets (A~ B)
 Two sets are said to be equivalent if they
contain the same number of elements
Set Operations
 Union (U)
 A U B = { x | x is in A or x is in B }
 Intersection (n)
 (A n B) = { x | x is in A and x is in B }
 Disjoint sets ?
 Difference (- or \)
 A\B = { x | x is in A and x is not in B }
 Symmetric difference (D)
 A D B = (A-B) U (B-A)
 Set Operations…
 Cartesian Product (X)
 AXB = {(x, y) | x e A and y e B}
 Power set (2A)
 2A =the set of all subsets of A
 Number of power sets = 2|A|
 Complement (‘, -)
 A’ = { x | x e U and x ‰ A}
 Demorgan’s law
 AUB = A nB
 A nB =AUB
Example
 Given Two sets;
 A = {a, b, c, d}
 B= {1, 2, c, d}
 Find:
 A U B, A n B, A\B, A D B, AXB, 2A, 2B , 2-
 Prove Demorgan’s law using the two sets
 Which of the relationships between sets are
preserved by the two sets
Relation and function
 Relations are used to describe relationships
between members of sets of objects.
 Formally, a relation is just a subset of a cross
product of two sets. i.e. it is any subset of
ordered pairs.
 Definition :
 Let A and B be sets. A relation R from A to B is simply a
subset of A X B. If (a, b) e R, we write aRb. If (a, b)‰ R, we
write aRb.
 If A = B, we say R is a relation in A.
Relation and function…
 A relation R is said to be
 A relation is reflexive iff (Ax)(xRx).
 A relation is symmetric iff (Ax)(Ay)(xRy  yRx).
 A relation is transitive iff (Ax)(Ay)(Az)((xRy¶yRz)xRz).
 An equivalence relation is a relation that is reflexive,
symmetric, and transitive.
 E.g.1. Let A = {1, 2, 3, 4} , then R1 = AXA is equivalence
relation
 E.g.2. R2 = { (K, M), k & m are parallel lines in the same
plane } is equivalence relation too
 Relation and function…
 A function f is a special type of relation in which each
first coordinate is associated with one and only one
second coordinate.
 Definition;
 A function f: A f B is a subset of A X B for which

(Aa e A) ((afb1 ¶ afb2)  b1 = b)

2

 Range: The range of a function f: X f Y is given by

{y e Y|Ex e X such that f(x) = y}.
 Domain: The domain of a function f: X f Y is given
by {x e X|EyeY such that f(x) = y}.
Relation and function…
 Let f: A f B; f is said to be
 Into function(total function)
 Ax e A, Ey e B such that f(x) =y – every
element of a domain is mapped -
 Onto function:
 Ay e B, Ex e A such that f(x) =y – every
element of a range is mapped
 one to one (injective) function :
 If x1 Î x2 then f(x1) Î f(x2)
Graphs and Trees
 A graph is a construct consisting of two finite sets,
 the set V = {v1, v2, ..., vn} of vertices
 the set E = {e1,e2,...,em} of edges.
 Each edge is a pair of vertices from V, from
instance ei = (vj, vk)is an edge from vj to vk.
 ei is an outgoing edge for vertex vj and an
incoming edge for vertex vk
 Such a construct actually is directed graph
(digraph), since we associate a direction (from vj to
vk) with each edge
Graphs and Trees …
 Graphs are conveniently visualized by diagrams.

 The above graph has three vertices v1, v2, and v3 and
four edges (v1, v3), (v3, v1), (v3, v2) and (v3, v3)
Graphs and Trees …
 A walk is a sequence of edges.
 (vi, vj), (vj, vk), …, (vm, vn) is a walk from vi to vn
 The length of a walk is the total number of edges
traversed in going from initial to final vertex
 Path is a walk in which no edge is repeated.
 A path is simple if no vertex is repeated
 Cycle - A walk from vi to itself with no repeated edges
with base vi
 If no vertices other than the base are repeated in a cycle,
then it is said to be simple
Graphs and Trees …
 A tree is a diagraph with the following
properties
 There is one vertex called the root that has no
predecessors and from which there is a path to
every vertex
 Each vertex other than the root has exactly one
predecessor (no cycle)
 The successor of each vertex are ordered from
the left
Graphs and Trees …
 Binary Tree
Proof Techniques
 Proof is a convincing demonstration (within the accepted
standards of the field) that some mathematical statement
is necessarily true.
 There are a number of proof techniques. Some of them are
 Direct proof
 Proof by induction
 Proof by transposition
 Proof by contradiction
 Proof by construction,
 etc
 We will see proof by induction and proof by contradiction
Proof by induction
 Suppose we have some statement pn and we want
to demonstrate pn is true for An e N.
 In proof by induction we say pn is true for all
positive n provided that;
 P1 is true
 If pk is true, so is pk+1, for some k e Z+
 An inductive proof has three parts:
 Basis case – [P1 is true ]
 Inductive hypothesis – [ If pk is true ]
 Inductive step – [so is pk+1]
Proof by induction…
 Example n
n(n  1)
 Show that 
i 1
i
2
For all n>=1.

Proof
Base case : n=1
1
1(1  1)
i 
i 1 2
1 = 1
Inductive hypothesis:k k (k  1)
Suppose that  i  for some k>=1.
i 1 2
Inductive step: k 1
We will show that  i 
(k  1)(k  2)
i 1 2
k 1 k

 i   i  (k  1)
i 1 i 1

k (k  1) by the inductive hypothesis

  (k  1)
2
k (k  1)  2(k  1)

2
(k  1)(k  2)

2
It follows that for all n>=1. •
n
n(n  1)
i 
i 1 2
Proof By Contradiction
 Suppose we want to prove that some statement p is
true. We then assume, that p is false and see where
that assumption leads us.
 Example
prove that is 2 irrational number
Proof:
Lets assume 2 is rational number
So, by definition we can write 2 as
p
2
q
Proof By Contradiction…
- where p and q are integers with no common factors
other than 1
- So, p = q 2 ,
- p2 = 2q2 (by squaring both sides)
-  p2 is even. This implies p is even
- If P is even we can write p as p = 2m, where m is an
integer.
- Hence, p2 = (2m)2 = 4m2
Proof By Contradiction…
- 4m2 = 2q2
-  q2 =2m2
- Again q2 is even means q is even.
- Hence, p and q are both even, which shows that p
and q have a common factor other than 1 (2).
- This contradicts our assumption.
- So, 2 is irrational