Exercise 8.1.8

Prove that every uncountable set has a subset of cardinality 1 .

Answers

This proof is similar to that of Theorem 8.1.4.

Proof. Let A be an uncountable set. By the Well-Ordering Principle (which is equivalent to the Axiom of Choice by Theorem 8.1.13) A can be well ordered, and so can be arranged in a bijective transfinite sequence a α α < Ω for some ordinal Ω . Since A is then equipotent to Ω it has to be that ω 1 Ω since otherwise Ω (and therefore A ) would be countable or finite. So then clearly the range of the transfinite sequence a α α < ω 1 is a subset of A with cardinality 1 . □

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2024-07-15 11:42
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