Venn Diagram & Set Theory

Koushik C S
3 min readDec 4, 2020

The diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets is known as Venn Diagram or Set Diagram.

Examples → Venn Diagram of Number System(left) and Venn Diagram of Purpose of life from Ikigai(Right)

Before diving into the Venn Diagram first let’s understand what is a set.

A Set is a collection of Objects.

Venn Diagrams are diagrams containing circles that show the logical relations between a collection of sets or groups.

Let’s consider the above diagram and start to understand the Venn diagram.

There are 100 persons in total in which 30 persons drink Tea,20 persons drink Coffee,10 persons drink both Tea & Coffee and the remaining people neither drink Tea nor Coffee.

In the above Diagram there a two sets namely

* Set TEA= People who drink Tea.(40)

* Set COFFEE=People who drink Coffee.(30)

These Set are illustrated using Venn diagram for better Understanding.

Sets illustrated using Venn Diagram

COMPLEMENT

Complement → It is represented as

Complement Symbol

It includes all the people who don’t drink Tea. Let’s use this in our Example and see

SET OPERATIONS

UNION

Union → It is represented as

Union Symbol

It includes people who drink tea, coffee or both. Let’s use this in our Example and see

INTERSECTION

Intersection → It is represented as

Intersection Symbol

It includes people who drink both tea and coffee. Let’s use this in our Example and see

SET DIFFERENCE

Set Difference →It is represented as

Difference Symbol

It includes people who drink either only Tea or Coffee but not both. Let’s use this in our Example and see

SYMMETRIC DIFFERENCE

Symmetric Difference → It is represented as

Symmetric Difference Symbol

It includes people who drink either only Tea and only Coffee but not both. Let’s use this in our Example and see

Venn Diagram is also used in Machine Learning. In a Classification problem for Model evaluation confusion matrix is used. The Confusion Matrix can be represented by Venn Diagram.

Confusion Matrix(Left) and its corresponding Venn diagram(Right)

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