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Exercises 12.6 Exercises

1.

Prove: If \(B \) is finite and \(A \subseteq B \text{,}\) then \(A \) is finite and \(\card{A} \le \card{B} \text{.}\)

2.

Suppose that \(A \text{,}\) \(B \text{,}\) and \(C \) are finite subsets of a universal set \(U \text{.}\)

(a)

Prove: If \(A \) and \(B \) are disjoint, then \(\card{A \sqcup B} = \card{A} + \card{B} \text{.}\)

4.

Prove: If \(\card{A} = \infty \) and \(A \subseteq B \text{,}\) then \(\card{B} = \infty \text{.}\)

7.

Use ExampleΒ 12.3.7 and the function \(f(x) = \tan x \) to prove that the interval \((-\pi/2,\pi/2) \) and \(\R \) have the same size.
Hint.
The function \(f(x) = \tan x \) is not one-to-one, but it becomes one-to-one if you restrict its domain to an appropriate interval

9.

Suppose \(A \) is a set with \(\card{A} = n \text{.}\) Then we can enumerate its elements as \(A = \{a_1,a_2,\dotsc,a_n\} \text{.}\)

(a)

Construct a bijection from the power set of \(A \) to the set of words in the alphabet \(\Sigma = \{T,F\} \) of length \(n \text{.}\)
Note that there are two tasks required here.
  1. Explicitly describe a function \(\funcdef{f}{\powset{A}}{\words{\Sigma}_n} \) by describing the input-output rule: give a detailed description of how, given a subset \(B \subseteq A \text{,}\) the word \(f(B) \) should be produced.
  2. Prove that your function \(f \) is a bijection.
Hint.
When determining the input-output rule for your function \(\funcdef{f}{\powset{A}}{\words{\Sigma}_n} \text{,}\) think of how one might construct an arbitrary subset of \(A \text{,}\) and then relate that process to a sequence of answers to \(n \) true/false questions.

(c)

Suppose \(k \) is some fixed (but unknown) integer, with \(0 \le k \le n \text{.}\) Let \(\powset{A}_k \) represent the subset of \(\powset{A} \) consisting of all subsets of \(A \) that have exactly \(k \) elements. Describe how your bijection from TaskΒ a, could be used to count the elements of \(\powset{A}_k \text{.}\)
Hint.
Consider how restricting the domain might help.