9.2.5 Intersections of Families of Relations

Let $A$ and $B$ be sets and let $\left\{ R_{i}\right\} _{i\in I}$ be a family of relations from $A$ to $B$.

The intersection of the family $\left\{ R_{i}\right\} _{i\in I}$ is the relation $\smash {\bigcup _{i\in I}R_{i}}$ defined as follows:

  • Viewing relations from $A$ to $B$ as subsets of $A\times B$, we define1

    \[ \bigcup _{i\in I}R_{i}\mathrel {\smash {\overset {\mathclap {\scriptscriptstyle \text{def}}}=}}\left\{ (a,b)\in (A\times B)^{\times I}\ \middle |\ \begin{aligned} & \text{for each $i\in I$,}\\ & \text{we have $a\sim _{R_{i}}b$}\end{aligned} \right\} . \]
  • Viewing relations from $A$ to $B$ as functions $A\to \mathcal{P}(B)$, we define

    \[ \left[\bigcap _{i\in I}R_{i}\right](a)\mathrel {\smash {\overset {\mathclap {\scriptscriptstyle \text{def}}}=}}\bigcap _{i\in I}R_{i}(a) \]

    for each $a\in A$.


  1. 1This is the same as the intersection of $\left\{ R_{i}\right\} _{i\in I}$ as a collection of subsets of $A\times B$.

Let $A$ and $B$ be sets and let $\left\{ R_{i}\right\} _{i\in I}$ be a family of relations from $A$ to $B$.

  1. 1.

    Interaction With Converses. We have

    \[ (\bigcap _{i\in I}R_{i})^{\dagger } = \bigcap _{i\in I}R^{\dagger }_{i}. \]

Item 1: Interaction With Converses
Clear.


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