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Re: symmetric difference calculation
Posted:
Jun 7, 2011 1:06 AM
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On Mon, 6 Jun 2011 21:17:51 -0700 (PDT), "g_chime@yahoo.com"
<g_chime@yahoo.com> wrote in
<news:d3f809e5-f9b3-477a-b82e-dd75689cc017@f31g2000pri.googlegroups.com>
in alt.math.undergrad:
> I need help with the following (not a hw problem, just
> reading a book on prob theory):
> Let * be the symmetric difference operation: A * B =
> (A-B) U (B-A)
> solve for X: A * X = B
> I can solve it using a venn diagram: X = A * B
> But how do I get the solution using set algegra?
The most elegant approach is to prove that * is associative
and that S * S = Ø and Ø * S = S for any set S: then you
have X = Ø * X = (A * A) * X = A * (A * X) = A * B.
The only hard part of that is the associativity of *, which
is probably most easily proved by element chasing (i.e., by
showing that x is a member of A * (B * C) if and only if x
is a member of (A * B) * C.
Brian
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