# How to prove for that a given non-regular language its given super-set is also non-regular? [duplicate]

Consider the non-regular language $L_1$ = {$a^n$b$a^n$: $n \geq 0$} and its super-set language

L = Language of strings with equal number of trailing and leading a's,

or in other words,

$$L = \{a^n b w b a^n : n \ge 0, w \in \{a,b\}^*\} \cup \{a^n b a^n : n \ge 0\}.$$

How would we prove that L is also non-regular?

I have the idea that I should use the help of $L_2 = L - L_1$, but I'm stuck at the following step:

$L_1 \cap L_2 = \phi$ , thus $L_1 \cap L_2$ is a regular language.

I was trying to prove it using contradiction.

Let, L to be regular which is $L_1 \cup L_2$ is regular.

And tried to prove, $L_1$ or $L_2$ is equal to a set union or intersection or complement operation over the regular sets $L_1 \cap L_2$ and $L_1 \cup L_2$

But stuck at

$L_1 = [(L_1 \cup L_2) \cap (L_2)^c] \cup (L_1 \cap L_2)$

With Myhill-Nerode theorem: I might be incorrect please fix me if I am wrong.

Take S =$a^*(b+b.(a+b)^*.b)$
Pick x and y from S such that $x \neq y$.

x = $a^n b$
y = $a^m b$
Take, z = $a^n$

$x.z \in L$ but $y.z \notin L$. Thus, by Myhill_Nerode one can conclude it to be non-regular.

## marked as duplicate by David Richerby, Community♦Sep 25 '15 at 14:13

• 1. It's not clear to me what your language $L$ is. Please edit. I'll put this on hold to give you a chance to clarify. 2. Isn't this already covered by cs.stackexchange.com/q/1031/755? Is there a reason this is not a duplicate? 3. What have you tried? Have you tried the techniques listed there? We discourage posts that simply state a problem out of context, and expect the community to solve it. Assuming you tried to solve it yourself and got stuck, it'd be helpful if you wrote your thoughts and what you could not figure out. We're not here to solve your exercises for you. – D.W. Sep 25 '15 at 0:24
Since you already know that $L_1$ is nonregular, here is a simple proof. Suppose that $L$ is regular. Then since $a^*ba^*$ is regular, the language $L \cap a^*ba^*$ should be regular. But $L \cap a^*ba^* = L_1$, which is not regular. Hence $L$ is nonregular.