# Determine the number of relations on A that are

I'm sure this is a super simple question but I'm a bit stuck on how exactly I'm supposed to solve this. I have a feeling this might be a counting related question but I'm not sure. If anyone could just help me with (a) I think I might be able to chug through the rest.

Let $A = \left\{ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 \right\}$. Determine the number of relations on $A$ that are:

(a) Reflexive and symmetric

(b) Symmetric and contain (1, 2)

(c) Antisymmetric

(d) Symmetric and antisymmetric

Any relation on a finite set $A$ to itself can be represented as a square matrix of size $|A|$. With the idea that if element $a_i$ is related to element $a_j$ then the $ij-$th entry is $1$ otherwise it will be zero.
With this, for reflexivity you need all the diagonal elements $ii-$elements to be $1$. So out of $8^2=64$ entries the fate of these $8$ is already decided.
For symmetric relation, the matrix should be symmetric, i.e the $ij$ entry should be same as $ji$ entry. So essentially you can only play with $(64-8)/2=28$ Off diagonal entries of the matrix. Each of those can be either $0$ or $1$. So there are $2^{28}$ such matrices possible, hence that many reflexive and symmetric relations.