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Understanding Sets and Their Operations

1. A set is a collection of distinct objects called elements or members. Sets are described using roster or rule methods and are represented with capital letters. 2. Relations between sets include subsets, equality, one-to-one correspondence, and equivalence. Operations on sets include union, intersection, complement, and difference. 3. There are several important subsets of real numbers including natural numbers, whole numbers, integers, rational numbers, and irrational numbers. Exercises test understanding of set concepts and operations through true/false questions and computations with given sets.

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Herald Mulano
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255 views2 pages

Understanding Sets and Their Operations

1. A set is a collection of distinct objects called elements or members. Sets are described using roster or rule methods and are represented with capital letters. 2. Relations between sets include subsets, equality, one-to-one correspondence, and equivalence. Operations on sets include union, intersection, complement, and difference. 3. There are several important subsets of real numbers including natural numbers, whole numbers, integers, rational numbers, and irrational numbers. Exercises test understanding of set concepts and operations through true/false questions and computations with given sets.

Uploaded by

Herald Mulano
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Sets

Definition. A set is a well-defined collection of objects. Any object in the set is called an element or member of the set.
Notation:
1. Uppercase letters - set
2. Lowercase letters - elements in a set
3. Membership in a set -
4. Empty set - or {}
5. Universal set - set consisting of all elements in a particular discussion - U

Describing Sets
1. Listing/Roster method - listing all the elements
2. Rule method - using a descriptive phrase

Relation on Sets
Definition. Let A and B be sets.
1. A is a subset of B (A B) if every element of A is an element of B.
2. A and B are equal (A = B) if they have precisely the same elements.
3. A and B are in one-to-one correspondence if to each element of A, there corresponds an unique element of B and vice-versa.
4. A and B are equivalent (A B) if and only if sets A and B are in one-to-one correspondence.
Definition. Let A be a set.
1. A is finite if A = or it is possible to list down all its elements. Otherwise, A is infinite.
2. The cardinality of a finite set is the number of elements on that set.

Operations on Sets
Let A and B be sets.

Union (A B) is the set of elements that belong to A, B or both.

Intersection (A B) is the set of elements that belong to A and


B.

Complement of A (Ac ) is the set of all of U which are not in


A.

Difference (A B) is the set of elements in A which are not in


B.

Properties. Let A and B be sets.


1. If A B = , then A and B are disjoint.
2. Distributive Laws
(a) A (B C) = (A B) (A C)
(b) A (B C) = (A B) (A C)
Definition.
1. An ordered pair (a, b) is a set with two elements in which we distinguish a first and second element.
(a, b) = (x, y) if and only if a = x and b = y.
2. The Cartesian product of non-empty sets A and B (A B) is the set ordered pairs (a, b) where a A and b B.
The Subsets of the Set of Real Numbers
Definition.
Natural Numbers or Counting Numbers N = {1, 2, 3, . . .}
Whole Numbers W = N {0} = {0, 1, 2, 3, . . .}
Integers Z = {. . . , 3, 2, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, . . .}
Rational Numbers Q = {x|x = p/q, p, q Z, q 6= 0}
Irrational Numbers Q0
Real Numbers R = Q Q0

Exercises.
1. TRUE or FALSE.
(a) If A B = A, then B = A.
(b) Given 3 non-empty sets A, B and C, if A 6= B and B 6= C, then A 6= C.
(c) Let A B. If n(B) = 5 and n(A B) = 3, then n(B A) = 2.
(d) All sets are disjoint with the empty set.
(e) For any two sets A and B, if A B = A then Ac B c .
(f) If A , then for any set B, A B = B.
(g) If x is an element of A and B, then x (Ac B)c .
(h) Q Qc is a subset of the set of real numbers.
(i) N Z Q R
(j) If A = B, then (A B)c B = (A B)c A.
(k) If A B and A C, then B C 6= A.
(l) If A = {x, y, } and B = {m, , n}, then A B = .
(m) If A is a finite set and B is an infinite set, then A B is a finite set.
2. Given the sets:
U = {a, b, c, . . . , x, y, z}
A = {t, r, i, a, n, g, l, e, s}
B = {s, q, u, a, r, e}
C = {d, e, c, a, g, o, n}
Find:
(a) (A (B C))
(b) ((Ac B c ) C)
(c) ((A B C) U )
(d) ((A (B U )) (B C))
(e) ((A C) B)
3. Given the sets:
U = {k | k is a distinct letter of the word mathematics}
X = {s, c, a, t, h, e}
Y = {e, t, h, i, c, s}
Z is the set of all distinct letters of the word estimate
Find:
(a) n(X U )
(b) Y (Z U )c
(c) U (X Y )
(d) X c (Z X)
(e) (Y Z c ) (X c Y )

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