Final answer:
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a likely primary key for a 4-ary relation of published books because it is unique for each book and enables efficient database management.
Step-by-step explanation:
A likely primary key for a 4-ary relation representing published books with attributes such as title, ISBN, publication date, and number of pages would be the ISBN. This is because the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique identifier for books, making it ideal as a primary key in a database system. Using ISBN as the primary key would prevent duplicate records for the same book and allow for efficient query operations.
A likely primary key for this relation would be the ISBN (International Standard Book Number). The ISBN is a unique identifier assigned to each published book and is commonly used as a primary key to uniquely identify books in a database. It consists of a 13-digit number that provides information about the book, such as the language, publisher, and edition.
Using the ISBN as the primary key would ensure the uniqueness of each book's record in the database, allowing for efficient retrieval and manipulation of book-related information.