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Currently, the text under “In a lattice” has the text:
Given a lattice and two elements and of , a relative complement of relative to is an element such that:
And then in the text beneath, it says.
In any case, complements are unique.
However, this isn’t true even in a Boolean algebra. Consider the power set of and let be and be . satisfies the two conditions above but is not equal to the usual set difference .
Is there a reference for (something like) this definition for relative complement?
Also, while I’m here:
The term Boolean ring is sometimes used for something like a Boolean algebra in which there may be no top element (and therefore no complements) but still relative complements; compare the notions of ring vs algebra at sigma-algebra. That is, a Boolean ring is a bounded-below distributive lattice in which all relative complements exist.
I believe these are also called “generalized Boolean algebra”, see e.g. Wikipedia though I think the terminology goes back to Stone. This Wikipedia article also defines the relative complement via a pair of conditions:
Defining a ∖ b as the unique x such that (a ∧ b) ∨ x = a and (a ∧ b) ∧ x = 0,
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