NOTION OF A

SET

NOTION OF A
SET

Learning objectives:
Upon completion you should be
able to:
Give examples of a set;
Name the elements of a set;
Describe a set using the roster
and rule methods;
Give examples of empty and
universal sets.

NOTION OF A
SET

A SET is a well-defined
collection of objects, real or
imagined.
Examples:
The collection of all new
freshman students
The collection of all integers
The collection of all species of
dinosaur living as of this day

NOTION OF A
SET

Remark.
We denote a set by a capital
letter.

Try this!

NOTION OF A
SET

Which of the following is a

set?
The collection of:
1. all the cities in the
Philippines
2. all best computer games
3. all beautiful and handsome
MATH 11-UV students

Try this!

NOTION OF A
SET

Which of the following is a

set?
The collection of:
4. all large positive numbers
5. all letters in the Filipino
alphabet
6. all negative numbers
7. all three-legged MATH 11-

NOTION OF A
SET

REMEMBER:
A collection is well-defined
if it is possible to
determine whether a given
object belongs to the set
or not.

NOTION OF A
SET

Let P be the set of all primary

colors. Which of the following are in
P?

d
e
R
Carnation
Pink

Bro
w

e
u
l
B

Orange

w
o
l
l
e
Y
Fuschia

NOTION OF A
SET

The objects that make up a set

are called elements.
Thus, ____, ____,and ____ are elements of
P while _______________________ are not
elements of P.

The number of elements of a

set is called its cardinality.

NOTION OF A
SET
In symbols, we write
a A
belongs to set
.
a A
Otherwise, we write

, in case

Thus, in our example, we write

Red P while Carnation Pink P

NOTION OF A
SET
Sets can be described by enumerating
the elements, separated by commas, and
enclosed in a pair of braces.
Thus, the set of all vowels in the
English alphabet, denoted by V, can
also be described as

V a,e, i, o, u

This method of describing sets is called

roster or enumeration method.

NOTION OF A
SET

Try this!
Describe the following sets
using the roster method:
1. Set of all possible outcomes
when you toss a coin
2. Set of colors found in the
rainbow

NOTION OF A
SET

Another way of describing sets

is by the rule method.
In this method, a variable is used
to represent the elements, this is
followed by a bar, and then a rule
describing the property common
to all the elements.
Of course, these are enclosed in

NOTION OF A
SET

Example. The set of all students in

UPLB, AY 2014 - 2015, denoted by G,
can be written using the rule
method in the following way:

G x | x is a student in UPLB, AY 2014 - 2015

Name some elements of G.

NOTION OF A
SET

When is the rule method more

advantageous to use than the roster
method?
When is the roster method more useful
than the rule method?

Special sets

NOTION OF A
SET

Examples are:
1. The set of snakes that have
hands
2. The set of all fish that can say
Hello

NOTION OF A
SET

Try this!

Is this an empty set?

Identify some more empty

sets.

NOTION OF A
SET

Another special set is the universal set

denoted by U.
The universal set is the set of all
possible elements in a given situation.
For example, if we consider {red,
orange, blue}
Then a possible universal set is the set
of all colors of the rainbow.
Thus U is the set of all colors of the
rainbow.

NOTION OF A
SET

Try this!
Give a universal set from which the members
of the following sets could be chosen:
1. { 4, 8, 12, 16}
2. {BS Math, BS Applied Math, BS Applied
Physics}
3. {AB, JR, AM, EJ, DS, GS}

N
1, 2,3,...

NATURAL NUMBERS

E
2k | k N

EVEN NUMBERS

ODD NUMBERS

2k 1 | k N

PRIME NUMBERS

COMPOSITE NUMBERS

W
0,1, 2,3,...

WHOLE NUMBERS

INTEGERS

..., 1, 0,1,...

NOTION OF A
SET

In this section, we learned the

following:
When a set is well-defined or not
Sets are denoted by capital letters
Objects belonging to a set are called
elements
If a belongs to set B we write a B.
Otherwise, we write a B.
Sets can either be describe by the
rule or the roster methods
There are two special sets, namely,