when circles overlap or intersect those sub sets that are shared are known as a union or intersection areas that don t overlap show differences between sets and a complement set refers to everything not shared by a particular set or sub set 1
the history and origin of venn diagramsthe english logician john venn popularized the diagram in the 1880s he called them eulerian circles after the swiss mathematician leonard euler who created similar diagrams in the 1700s 2the term venn diagram did not appear until 1918 when clarence lewis an american academic philosopher and the eventual founder of conceptual pragmatism referred to the circular depiction as the venn diagram in his book a survey of symbolic logic 3venn studied and taught logic and probability theory at cambridge university where he developed his method of using diagrams to illustrate the branch of mathematics known as set theory 4 he published a precedent setting work the logic of chance which explained the frequency theory of probability in it he argued that probability contrary to popular assumption should be established based on the regularity with which something is predicted to occur 5 in another book symbolic logic venn built on and developed mathematician george boole s theories on algebra 6 this work helped him develop the venn diagram venn diagrams have been used since the mid 20th century in classrooms from the elementary school level to introductory logic applications for venn diagramsvenn diagrams are used to depict how items relate to each other against an overall backdrop universe data set or environment a venn diagram could be used for example to compare two companies within the same industry by illustrating the products both companies offer where circles overlap and the products that are exclusive to each company outer circles venn diagrams are at a basic level simple pictorial representations of the relationship that exists between two sets of things however they can be much more complex still the streamlined purpose of the venn diagram to illustrate concepts and groups has led to their popularized use in many fields including statistics linguistics logic education computer science and business examples of venn diagramsa venn diagram could be drawn to illustrate fruits that come in red or orange colors below we can see that there are orange fruits circle b such as persimmons and tangerines while apples and cherries circle a come in red colors peppers and tomatoes come in both red and orange colors as represented by the overlapping area of the two circles you might also draw a venn diagram to help decide which of two cars to purchase the venn diagram shows the features that are exclusive to each car and the features that both cars have below we see that car a is a sedan that s powered by gasoline and gets 20 miles per gallon while car b is a hybrid gets 40 miles per gallon and is a hatchback the shaded region where the two circles overlap shows the features that both cars have in common which include a radio four doors bluetooth capability and airbags the venn diagram graphically conveys the similarities and differences between the two cars to help decide which to purchase 