# How are quantifiers meant to be used in tuple-relational calculus?

(apologies for the incorrect tag, there was no relational-calculus tag)

In this lecture video the following tuple-relational calculus formula is given:

$\{ P | \exists S \in \text{Sailors} ( S.\text{rating} > 7 \land P.\text{sname} = S.\text{sname} \land P.\text{age} = S.\text{age}) \}$

in answer to the question Find the names and ages of sailors with rating above 7.

I'm having trouble understanding what the purpose is of the existence and equality operators used here as it wasn't adequately explained. There were several lectures on relational algebra and then only one cursory example on TRC.

$\{ ( S.\text{sname}, S.\text{age} ) | S \in \text{Sailors} ( S.\text{rating} > 7 ) \}$

since we are getting back a set of tuples. I'm not sure why mine is wrong.

Also I've seen some queries where the existential quantifier is used in different places without explanation. For example, for a different question from this PDF:

$\{ S | S \in \text{Sailors} ∧ S.\text{rating} > 7 ∧ ∃R(R∈\text{Reserves} ∧ R.\text{sid} = S.\text{sid} ∧ R.\text{bid} = \text{103})\}$

How is the existential quantifier meant to be used in TRC? When should it be used or not used? Why is it used differently in the two formulas? Why does the first formula above appear to do a join instead of just building the tuples as in my answer? The original question above implies the result will be a projection, which I know is a relational algebra construct, but it seems we should get back a 2-tuple having only those fields. So I'm not clear on how the act of "joining" in the first formula results in a "projection" for the answer.

Any clarification appreciated thanks.