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Exercise 8.1.7
Let be a binary relation on a set . Show that there exists a function such that for all , if and only if there is some such that .
Answers
Proof. If then clearly it must be that since . Hence is vacuously such a function. So assume that so that there is an . For any define the set , noting that this could certainly be empty if is not in the domain of . Clearly is a system of sets, and so has a choice function by the Axiom of Choice. We then define a function by
for all . We claim that meets the required criteria, so let be some element of .
Suppose that . Then clearly for we have that . We note that, if , then , and if then since is a choice function so that again since clearly .
Now suppose that there is a such that . Then clearly by definition we have so that . Thus since is a choice function. We therefore have as desired, again by the definition of . □