Set Theory

The concept of set

A set is any unordered collection of objects; the nature of the objects is immaterial.
The objects are called elements or members of the set.
A set is said to contain its elements.
A set of elements is specified by a property which all the elements belonging to the set possess.
Elements not belonging to the set do not possess that property.
Words that designate sets are called collective nouns by grammarians.

Key characteristic all sets

Given any set and any object, then:
The given object is either a member of the given set, or it is not.
The order in which objects are listed is immaterial.
Also:
An element of a set can be anything you can imagine, even another set.
Sets, like numbers, are abstractions.
If you've a set of dozen eggs, you've something more than just the eggs: those eggs are all in the
same group.
Examples
1. The set of all men named John Smith residing in the UK at 12 noon, October 11, 2013.
2. The set of all lions now living in the world.
3. The set of all points in the coordinate plane on the graph of x2 + y2 = 1.
4. The set Z of all integers.
Suppose S is a set consisting of objects a, b, c, d. We write:
S = {a, b, c, d}
If Cricket World Cup were defined as consisting of all its teams and all of its players, then:
Cricket World Cup = {West Indies, Australia, India, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, }
In this case,
Brian Lara West Indies , West IndiesCricket World Cup , also Brian LaraCricket World Cup

Set membership
1. If object x is a member of set A, we say that x is an element of A and write: x A
If object y is not a member of set A, we write: y A
2. A set with only one member is called a singleton set.
3. A set with no members at all is called the empty or null set. Notation: {} or

4. A set can be an element of another set. Examples:

{1, 2, {3, 4, 5}}
{1, {2, {3, 4, 5}}}
{1, {2, {3, {4, 5}}}}
{1, {2, {3, {4, {5}}}}}
5. An element is the smallest possible piece in a set. It cannot be broken down into anything
smaller. This notion becomes important whenever you've a set that contains another set as one
of its elements.
6. An inner or member set can sometimes have more elements than the set to which it
belongs. Example:
{a, b, {99, 45, 83, x, y, z}}
7. Since a set is an abstract notion, its members do not have to be physically collected together to
constitute it. Example:
set A = {People of European descent in the world}
8. When listing the elements of a set, order and repetition do not matter. These are all same sets:
{1, 2, 3}
{3, 2, 1}
{1, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1}
{1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 1}

So what actually makes a set?

A collection of things is a set if you decide to call it a set.
Example: We've a club with 5 members. This is our set.
Club = {David Beckham, Calvin Klein, Tom Cruise, Audrey Hepburn, Sean Connery}
Suppose all the members quit. Do we still have a club?
Yes. We have an empty set:
Club = {}
Thus,
The Club is a legitimate set (though empty) so long as it exists and is open for membership.
The Club itself is one of its own members, i.e. a set can be an element of itself.

Specifying or designating a set

3 ways:
List notation
Predicate notation
Recursive rules

List or roster notation

List all the members, if number of members are few.
Examples:
{23, 33, 29, 40}
{a, c, l, g}
{George, Paul, John, Ringo}

Predicate notation
Used for sets with:
many members, e.g. population of the world.
an infinite number of members, e.g. the points on a line.
Example:
We want to designate the set of the citizens of the UK.
For this, we do not need to know or list every citizen.
We simply say: A person is a UK citizen if and only if he/she is born in the UK or is
naturalised.
Generalising, we say:
x is a member of the set if and only if x
For the above example: x is a UK citizen if and only if x is born in the UK or is naturalised.
Letting f(x) = (x is born in the UK or is naturalised), we may say:
The citizens of the UK = the set of x such that f(x) = {x | f(x)}
Other examples:
{x | x is a natural number and x < 8}
{x | 2x = 1} = {}, since the only x such that 2x = 1 is . Note that {} , the first being
the set whose one member is , the second being itself.
The sentence that appears after the vertical bar is called a defining sentence of the set. It defines the
property the members of the set share, a condition or predicate which hold for the members of the set.
We say a defining sentence, because the same set may have many defining sentences. Thus:
{x | 2x = 1} = {x | 1x = 2} = {x | 3x - 1 = x} =
Fromthelisttothepredicatenotation
If we know the list of the set, we can always use the designation:
The set of all x such that x is one of the items listed in the set.
Thus:
{1, 2, 3} = {x | x=1x=2 x=3 }
Thetruthset
The set of solutions of the set {x | f(x)} is called the truth set of f(x).
Example:

The truth set of x2 = 4 is {2, 2}

Therange
The set of all values of a term is called the range of the term. Example:
1
The range of x in x is all numbers other than zero.

If the range of x is real numbers, then the range of x2 is the non-negative real numbers.

The range of a variable in a formula containing just one variable is called the domain of the formula.