#jsDisabledContent { display:none; } My Account |  Register |  Help

# Symmetric relation

Article Id: WHEBN0000200459
Reproduction Date:

 Title: Symmetric relation Author: World Heritage Encyclopedia Language: English Subject: Collection: Publisher: World Heritage Encyclopedia Publication Date:

### Symmetric relation

In mathematics and other areas, a binary relation R over a set X is symmetric if it holds for all a and b in X that if a is related to b then b is related to a.

In mathematical notation, this is:

\forall a, b \in X,\ a R b \Rightarrow \; b R a.

## Contents

• Examples 1
• In mathematics 1.1
• Outside mathematics 1.2
• Relationship to asymmetric and antisymmetric relations 2

## Examples

### Outside mathematics

• "is married to" (in most legal systems)
• "is a fully biological sibling of"
• "is a homophone of"

## Relationship to asymmetric and antisymmetric relations

By definition, a relation cannot be both symmetric and asymmetric (where if a is related to b, then b cannot be related to a (in the same way)). However, a relation can be neither symmetric nor asymmetric, which is the case for "is less than or equal to" and "preys on").

Symmetric and antisymmetric (where the only way a can be related to b and b be related to a is if a = b) are actually independent of each other, as these examples show.

 Symmetric Not symmetric Antisymmetric equality "is less than or equal to" Not antisymmetric congruence in modular arithmetic "is divisible by", over the set of integers
 Symmetric Not symmetric Antisymmetric "is the same person as, and is married" "is the plural of" Not antisymmetric "is a full biological sibling of" "preys on"

A symmetric relation that is also transitive and reflexive is an equivalence relation.

One way to conceptualize a symmetric relation in graph theory is that a symmetric relation is an edge, with the edge's two vertices being the two entities so related. Thus, symmetric relations and undirected graphs are combinatorially equivalent objects.