CS F222: Discrete Structures

for
Computer Science

Topic: Proof methods

BITS Pilani Dr. Raghunath Reddy
Hyderabad Campus
What is a Proof ?

A proof is a valid argument that establishes the truth of a

Mathematical Statement / theorem (as the conclusion)

• A proof can use the hypotheses of the theorem, if any,

axioms assumed to be true, and previously proven
theorems.

• A proof can use rules of inference.

• The final step of the proof establishes the truth of the

statement being proved.

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Related Terms
• Theorem: A statement that has been proven to be true.
– A statement that is considered at least somewhat important.

• Lemma : A theorem that is not very important.

– We sometimes prove a theorem by a series of lemmas

• Corollary : a theorem that can be easily established from a

theorem that has been proved

• Conjecture: a statement proposed to be a true.

• Statement, usually based on partial evidence, or intuition of an expert

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Proof Methods for Implications

For proving implications pq, we have:

• Direct proof

• Indirect proof

• Vacuous proof and Trivial proof

• Proof by contradiction

• Proof by cases

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 Definition of a Proposition
A proposition (denoted p, q, r, …) is simply:
 a statement (i.e., a declarative sentence)
– with some definite meaning, (not vague or ambiguous)

 having a truth value that’s either true (T) or false (F)

– it is never both, neither, or somewhere “in between!”
• However, you might not know the actual truth value,
• and, the truth value might depend on the situation or context.

 “Beijing is the capital of China.”  Today is Friday

 “1 + 2 = 3”
 But not,
 “It is raining.” (In a given situation.) “this sentence is false”

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Operators / Connectives

 An operator or connective combines one or more

operand expressions into a larger expression. (E.g.,
“+” in numeric exprs.)

Formal Name Nickname Arity Symbol

Negation operator NOT Unary ¬
Conjunction operator AND Binary 
Disjunction operator OR Binary 
Exclusive-OR operator XOR Binary 
Implication operator IMPLIES Binary 
Biconditional operator IFF Binary ↔

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The Negation Operator

 The unary negation operator “¬” (NOT) transforms a

prop. into its logical negation.
E.g. If p = “I have Car”
then ¬p = “I do not have Car.”
p p
 The truth table for NOT: T F
F T
Operand Result
column column

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The Conjunction Operator

 The binary conjunction operator “” (AND) combines two

propositions to form their logical conjunction.

Example p q pq
If p=“I will have salad for lunch.” and F F F
q=“I will have steak for dinner.”, then
F T F
pq=“I will have salad for lunch and
I will have steak for dinner.” T F F
T T T

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The Disjunction Operator

 The binary disjunction operator “” (OR) combines two

propositions to form their logical disjunction.

p=“My car has a bad engine.”

p q pq
q=“My car has a bad carburetor.” F F F
pq=“my car has a bad engine, or
my car has a bad carburetor.”
F T T
T F T
T T T

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Implication

 p  q reads as if p then q p q pq

(p is sufficient to happen q) F F T
F T T The
 p  q is false only when T F F only
p is true but q is not true. False
T T T case!

• “If 1+1=6, then Anna Hazare is president.”

True or False?

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Direct Proof
• A direct proof of a conditional statement
• pq
• first assumes that p is true, and uses axioms, definitions,
previously proved theorems, with rules of inference, to show
that q is also true

• The above targets to show that the case where p is true and q
is false never occurs
– Thus, p  q is always true

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Direct Proof (Example)
• Show that if m and n are both perfect square numbers, then
mn is also a perfect square number.

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Proof by contraposition (indirect proof)
• The proof by contraposition method makes use of the
equivalence
• pq  qp

• To show that the conditional statement p  q is true, we first

assume  q is true, use axioms, definitions, proved theorems,
with rules of inference, and show that  p is also true

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Proof by contraposition (Example)
• Show that if 3n + 2 is an odd integer, then n is odd.
• Proof :

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Vacuous Proofs
• Given a statement p → q,
• If we can prove that p is false, then we conclude that p → q is true. This
is called vacuous proof.

• Example:
• Prove that if n is an integer with 10 ≤ n ≤ 15 which is a perfect
square, then n is also a perfect cube.

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Trivial Proofs
• A proof of p → q that uses the fact that q is true is called a
trivial proof

• Example:

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Proof by contradiction
• The proof by contradiction method makes use of the
equivalence
p   p  F0 where F0 is any
contradiction
• One way to show that the latter is as follows: First assume  p
is true, and then show that for some proposition r, r is
true and  r is true
• That is, we show  p  ( r   r ) is true

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Proof by contradiction (example)
• Show that 2 is irrational.

• Proof :
• Assume on the contrary that it is rational. Then it can be
expressed as a / b, for some positive integers a and b with b 
0.
• Further, we may restrict a and b to have no common factor.

• It follows that a2 = 2b2 so that a is even.

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Proof cont…
• Then a = 2c for some integer c, so that
• (2c)2 = 2b2 .

• It follows that b2 = 2c2 so that b is even.

• A contradiction occurs (where ?), so that the original

statement is true.

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BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
Proof of contraposition as proof of contradiction
• proof of p → q by contraposition:
– we assume that ¬q is true.
– We then show that ¬p must also be true.

• Rewrite as proof of contradiction:

– we suppose that both p and ¬ q are true.
– Then, we use the steps from the proof of ¬ q → ¬ p to
show that ¬ p is true.
– This leads to the contradiction p ∧ ¬p, completing the
proof.

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Example:
• Prove that “if 3n + 2 is odd, then n is odd”.
• Proof:

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Proof by cases
• The proof by cases method makes use of the equivalence
( p1  p2  …  pk )  q ( p1  q )  ( p2  q )  …  ( pk  q )

• Sometimes, to prove p  q is true, it may be easy to use an

equivalent disjunction p1  p2  …  pk instead of p as the
hypothesis

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 Proof by cases (Example)
• Show that if an integer n is not divisible by 3, then n2 = 3k + 1 for some
integer k.
• Proof :
• “n is not divisible by 3” is equivalent to
– “n = 3m + 1 for some integer m” or
– “n = 3m + 2 for some integer m”.
• If it is the first case :
– n2 = (3m + 1)2 = 9m2 + 6m + 1 = 3(3m2 + 2m) + 1 = 3k + 1 for some
k.
• If it is the second case :
• n2 = (3m + 2)2 = 9m2 + 12m + 4 = 3(3m2 + 4m + 1) + 1 = 3k + 1 for some
k.
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 Proof of Equivalence
• When proving bi-conditional statement, we may make use of the
equivalence
• pq  (pq)(qp)

• In general, when proving several propositions are equivalent, we

can use the equivalence
• p 1  p 2  …  pk  ( p1  p2 )  ( p2  p3 )  …  ( pk  p)

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 Proof of Equivalence (Example)
• Show that the following statements about the integer n are
equivalent :
• p :=“n is even”
• q :=“n – 1 is odd”
• r := “n2 is even”

• To do so, we can show the three propositions

p  q, q  r, and r  p are all true.

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 Existence Proofs
• A proof of the proposition of the form x P(x) is called an
existence proof

• Sometimes, we can find an element, called a witness, such that P(s)

is true
– This type of existence proof is constructive

Example: Show that there is a positive integer that can be written as the sum
of cubes of positive integers in two different ways.

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Existence Proofs

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Common Fallacies

• A fallacy is an inference rule or other proof

p q pq
method that is not logically valid.
F F T
– A fallacy may yield a false conclusion! F T T
T F F
• Fallacy of affirming the conclusion: T T T
– “pq is true, and q is true, so p must be true.” (No,
because FT is true.)

• Fallacy of denying the hypothesis:

– “pq is true, and p is false, so q must be false.”
(No, again because FT is true.)

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Thank You!!

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