Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 48 — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION if xRy then maybe or maybe not yRx. A relation is tran- sitive when, if x<Ry and yRz then xRz. A relation is in- transitive when, if «Ry and yRz then not xRz. A relation is non-transitive when, if «Ry and yRz then maybe or maybe not x«Rz. There are one or two more terms used in dealing with relations that you _ should know. The direction in which a relation “goes” is called the sense of the relation. Thus, in “John loves Mary” the sense goes from John to Mary. The term from which the relation goes (John) is called the referent. The term to which it goes (Mary) is called the relatum. Every relation has a domain, a converse domain and a field. The domain of a relation is the class of terms which have that relation to something. The domain of “loves” is extremely wide, for many people love someone or something. The domain of “paternal aunt to” is not so wide, for much fewer people are paternal aunts. The converse domain of a relation is the class of terms to which something has the relation. Again, the converse domain of “loves” is pretty wide, for nearly everyone and everything is loved by some- one. In the case of the rela- tion “paternal aunt of” the converse domain is just as wide as the domain, for there must be as many of this kind of niece as there are this kind of aunt. The field of a relation is simply the sum ‘of the domain and the converse domain. The field of “loves” includes all the world’s lovers and all the loved ones. The field of “paternal aunt of” contains all the paternal aunts together with their nieces. One final property of rela- — tions that has a _ certain amount of importance is con- nexity. Given the relation “son of’ and the field “human beings” we cannot tell comicloooks.conm