# Predicate Logic and Popular Culture (Part 203): Bill Withers

Let $P$ be the set of all people, let $T$ be the set of all times, let $P(x,t)$ be the proposition “$x$ has pain at time $t$,” and let $S(x,t)$ be the proposition “$x$ has sorrow at time $t$.” Translate the logical statement

$\forall x \in P( \exists t_1 \in T(P(x,t)) \land \exists t_2 \in T(S(x,t))$.

This matches a line from “Lean on Me.” Note: while I think the translation above matches the intent of the song, a case could be made that, literally rendered, the “there exists” symbols should come first — that there’s a single time that everyone has pain at that one time.

Context: Part of the discrete mathematics course includes an introduction to predicate and propositional logic for our math majors. As you can probably guess from their names, students tend to think these concepts are dry and uninteresting even though they’re very important for their development as math majors.

In an effort to making these topics more appealing, I spent a few days mining the depths of popular culture in a (likely futile) attempt to make these ideas more interesting to my students. In this series, I’d like to share what I found. Naturally, the sources that I found have varying levels of complexity, which is appropriate for students who are first learning prepositional and predicate logic.

When I actually presented these in class, I either presented the logical statement and had my class guess the statement in actual English, or I gave my students the famous quote and them translate it into predicate logic. However, for the purposes of this series, I’ll just present the statement in predicate logic first.

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