# Quantifiers question

• January 31st 2008, 09:59 AM
jtc4zH
Quantifiers question
It's been a little why since I've had discrete math, so could someone help me remember why:

"There exists an 'x' such that for all 'y', x + y == 0" is FALSE,

but

"For all 'x', there exists a 'y' such that x + y == 0" is TRUE?

Thanks!
• January 31st 2008, 10:25 AM
colby2152
Quote:

Originally Posted by jtc4zH
It's been a little why since I've had discrete math, so could someone help me remember why:

"There exists an 'x' such that for all 'y', x + y == 0" is FALSE,

but

"For all 'x', there exists a 'y' such that x + y == 0" is TRUE?

Thanks!

Read it twice over and slowly. The first statement says that there is one number, $x$ that when added to any number $y$, it equals zero. You cannot possibly say that both $x+4=0$ and $x+55=0$.

The second line says that for any number $x$, there exists a y that satisfies those conditions. This is a one-to-one relationship. For:
$x=5$,
$y=-5$;

for $x=$http://www.virginiaapples.org/images/top-apple.gif,
$y=-$http://www.virginiaapples.org/images/top-apple.gif.