Tuesday, 16 June 2015

elementary set theory - Proving the Commutative, Associative and Distributive laws of Sets

I have looked all over the web and can't find any elegant proofs for the commutative, associative and distributive laws of Sets:




Commutative Law
AB=BA, AB=BA
Associative Law
A(BC)=(AB)C, A(BC)=(AB)C
Distributive Law
A(BC)=(AB)(AC),A(BC)=(AB)(AC)



How would these be proved in an elegant way?




The question comes from Tom M Apostol Calculus Volume I book. He gives an example proof of the commutative law as follows.




Let X=AB, Y=BA. To prove that X=Y we prove that XY and YX. Suppose that xX. Then x is in at least one of A or B. Hence, x is in at least one of B or A; so xY. Thus, every element of X is also in Y, so XY. Similary, we find that YX, so X=Y




He doesn't presuppose knowledge of truth tables. Can this proof be written in a more mathematical and concise way? How would I go about writing concise proofs for the other laws?



I understand the logic, but I am new to mathematical language.

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