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# Notes on Congruences

We say that a relation is a congruence with respect to a set of functions and relations iff, when we consider a first-order language containing symbols for these functions and relations and interpret ‘eq’ as , the Axioms for Equality hold in the resulting structure .

We next fix as well as functions and relations and consider the set of all congruences on the set with respect to these functions and relations.

We assume no relation symbols other than congruence itself. (We represent a predicate as .)

## Intersection of Congruences

Theorem: Let be a set of congruences. Then is also a congruence. Note: we define .

Proof:

We will consider the case of . It case be generalized to arbitrary number of relation, because is associative.

Reflexive: because are congruence. It implies that .

Symmetric: because are congruence. It implies that .

Transitive:

Congruence conditions:

End of Proof.

## Existence of the Least Congruence Containing Given Relation

Theorem: Let be a relation. Let be the set of all congruences such that and let . Then is the least congruence containing , that is

• is a congruence
• if is a congruence such that , then

## Construction of the Least Congruence Containing Given Relation

Define

Let for .

Theorem: is the least congruence containing .

Proof (sketch):

• : is a congruence that contains , thus .
• : by induction on .
• : by definition of
• : all elements introduced by are required to be in by definition of congruence, so if then also

End of Proof.