I know that $(a,b)\in R$ means an ordered pair of elements $a$ and $b$ belonging to the set $R$ but sometimes I see some expression like $a R b$ ? What does this notation/expression mean ? How to read $a R b$?
What is the difference between set membership symbol $\in$ and $R$?
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0Yes, now it's correct. – 2012-08-04
5 Answers
The reason for the notation $aRb$ is that many relations are already written as infix. For example, think of the relation $a on the set $\{1,2,3,4,5\}$. Actually that relation is given by the set $\{(1,2),(1,3),(1,4),(1,5),(2,3),(2,4),(2,5),(3,4),(3,5),(4,5)\}$. Now we could give a name to that set, say "$L$" (for "less than") and write "$(a,b)\in L$", but we don't do that. We write "$a". Now think of an arbitrary relation $R$. That arbitrary relation is also given by a set of pairs. But in analogy to relations like $<$ or $\ge$, we want an infix notation, but at the same time want to make clear that it is the relation given by the set $R$. Now one could have selected some general symbol and used that as general "relation" symbol, e.g. $a\rightleftharpoons_Rb$, however at some time someone decided for the minimalist solution of just writing $R$ itself in the middle, i.e. $aRb$, and that caught on. Note however that for specific types of relations (like equivalence relations or orders) usually special symbols ($\sim$, $\preceq$) are used, possibly with index $R$.
So in short, $aRb$ is exactly equivalent to $(a,b)\in R$, however emphasizes that this is a relation.
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0@Geek: I'd just read the letters in sequence, but I guess that's not the standard way to read it. – 2012-08-04
R usually denotes some relation, so it means that $a$ and $b$ are associated under relation R. If relation is represented by some subset of $C \subset A \times B$, then $a R b$ means that $(a,b) \in C$.
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0Please see my edited question. I wanted to know how to read the expression $a R b$ – 2012-08-04
A relation $R$ on a set $S$ is just a subset of $S\times S$. and we say $a$ R $b$ in other words a and b are R related. for example I give a relation R on $\mathbb{Z}$ such that $aRb\Leftrightarrow 5|(a-b)$
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0@Geek: That symbol means "divides" (as in "5 divides a minus b"), and it says that $(a-b)$ is a multiple of $5$. – 2012-08-04
Like the above poster said, $a R b$ usually means some kind of relation.
Another notation is $a \sim b$, which is frequently used to denote an equivalence relation.
A concrete example is $aRb$ if and only if $a-b$ is even.
Note that this is an equivalence relation:
aRa since $a-a=0$ is even. (reflexive)
aRb implies bRa since $a-b$ even implies $b-a$ even. (symmetric)
aRb, bRc implies aRc since $a-b$ even and $b-c$ even implies $a-c$ even. (transitive)
$aRb$ means the same as $(a,b) \in R$