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Exercise 9.1.1
If ( ) are mutually disjoint sets and , and if ( ) are cardinals, then
(associativity of )
Answers
Proof. Suppose that are mutually disjoint sets where for every . Then, by definition, we have that
Now let , from which it is trivial to show that . It follows from Exercise 2.3.10 that
We claim that the sets are mutually disjoint. So consider any and in where , and suppose that and are not disjoint so that there is an where and . Then there is a where and a where . Now, since are mutually disjoint and , it follows that and are disjoint. Therefore it has to be that (since and ). But then and are not disjoint (since is in both) despite the fact that , which contradicts the fact that are mutually disjoint. So it must be that in that and are disjoint, which proves the result since and were arbitrary.
Since have been shown to be mutually disjoint, it follows by definition that
Lastly, we also clearly have that are mutually disjoint for any (since are mutually disjoint) so that
Putting this all together, we have
as desired. □