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Exercise 3.6.4 (Cardinal arithmetic)

Prove Proposition 3.6.14.

Proposition 3.6.14

(a)
Let X be a finite set, and let x be an object which is not an element of X. Then X ∪{x} is finite and #(X ∪{x}) = #(X) + 1.
(b)
Let X and Y be finite sets. Then X ∪ Y is finite and #(X∪ Y ) ≤ #(X) + #(Y ). If in addition X and Y are disjoint (i.e., X ∩ Y = ∅ ), then #(X ∪ Y ) = #(X) + #(Y ).
(c)
Let X be a finite set, and let Y be a subset of X. Then Y is finite, and #(Y ) ≤ #(X). If in addition Y ≠X (i.e., Y is a proper subset of X), then we have #(Y ) < #(X).
(d)
If X is a finite set, and f : X → Y is a function, then f(X) is a finite set with #(f(X)) ≤ #(X). If in addition f is one-to-one, then #(f(X)) = #(X).
(e)
Let X and Y be finite sets. Then Cartesian product X × Y is finite and #(X × Y ) = #(X) × #(Y ).
(f)
Let X and Y be finite sets. Then the set Y X (defined in Axiom 3.10) is finite and # (Y X) = #(Y )#(X).

Answers

(e) There are at least two ways to do this problem; a direct induction or the more elegant use of the Euclidean algorithm. We present the latter. We wish to exhibit a bijection between the numbers {0,…,nm − 1}. Given any number q ≤ nm − 1, the Euclidean algorithm gives q = pm + r with 0 ≤ r ≤ m and this representation is unique. If X has cardinality n and Y has m, given by the bijections f and g respectively, then we will use these to create a bijection h onto X × Y . Note that we take f(g) to have domain {0,…,n − 1(m − 1)}.

So, let q ∈{0,…,nm − 1},q = pm + r. Define h(q) to be (f(p),g(r). Uniqueness of the representation of q gives that this is well defined. h is one to one since h(q) = h (q′) implies f(p) = f (p′) and g(r) = g (r′). As f and g are one to one, p = p′ and r = r′, so q = q′. Finally, given (x,y) ∈ X × Y , since f and g are onto there exist t ∈{0,…,n − 1} and z ∈{0,…,m − 1} with f(t) = x and g(z) = y. So h(tm + z) = (x,y).

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2021-12-19 20:22
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