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Concept
Converse relation
Summary
In mathematics, the converse relation, or transpose, of a binary relation is the relation that occurs when the order of the elements is switched in the relation. For example, the converse of the relation 'child of' is the relation 'parent of'. In formal terms, if and are sets and is a relation from to then is the relation defined so that if and only if In set-builder notation,
The notation is analogous with that for an inverse function. Although many functions do not have an inverse, every relation does have a unique converse. The unary operation that maps a relation to the converse relation is an involution, so it induces the structure of a semigroup with involution on the binary relations on a set, or, more generally, induces a on the as detailed below. As a unary operation, taking the converse (sometimes called conversion or transposition) commutes with the order-related operations of the calculus of relations, that is it commutes with union, intersection, and complement.
Since a relation may be represented by a logical matrix, and the logical matrix of the converse relation is the transpose of the original, the converse relation is also called the transpose relation. It has also been called the opposite or dual of the original relation, or the inverse of the original relation, or the reciprocal of the relation
Other notations for the converse relation include or
For the usual (maybe strict or partial) order relations, the converse is the naively expected "opposite" order, for examples,
A relation may be represented by a logical matrix such as
Then the converse relation is represented by its transpose matrix:
The converse of kinship relations are named: " is a child of " has converse " is a parent of ". " is a nephew or niece of " has converse " is an uncle or aunt of ". The relation " is a sibling of " is its own converse, since it is a symmetric relation.
In the monoid of binary endorelations on a set (with the binary operation on relations being the composition of relations), the converse relation does not satisfy the definition of an inverse from group theory, that is, if is an arbitrary relation on then does equal the identity relation on in general.
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