Elementary Set Theory – Definition of Symmetric Difference

definitiondiscrete mathematicselementary-set-theorylogic

The definition of a symmetric difference of two sets, that my book provides, is: Set containing those elements in either $A$or $B$, but not in both $A$ and $B$.

So, in set builder notation, I figured that it would be $A⊕B = \{x| (x \in A \vee x \in B) \wedge (x \notin A \wedge x \notin B)\}$

Is this correct? I have some properties of symmetric differences of sets to prove, and I wanted to prove them by subsets, and by using definitions and laws of logic.

Best Answer

As written, you say that $x$ is in at least one of them, and $x$ is in neither of them. In other words, you've defined the empty set. To fix it, you could change $$x\notin A\wedge x\notin B$$ to $$x\notin A\vee x\notin B.$$

Related Question