TOC-Math
[!quote]+ “No one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us.” ---David Hilbert, 1926
Sets
+ Def: A set (naively) is a collection of objects such that
- no order and no duplication
An object
To represent a set, you need to
- Put all members in a pair of curly brackets
; - Enumerate all members, e.g.
; or - Give a member representative and followed by the characteristic of members using a predicate,
- e.g.
.
- e.g.
+ Def: Empty set
"
+ Def: Empty set
Universal set
+ Def: Universal set
A universal set is a set that contains all elements under a certain context.
A universal set is usually denoted in the blackboard bold font. For example,
: the set of natural numbers; : the set of integers; : the set of rational numbers; : the set of real numbers; : the set of complex numbers; : the universal set without a specification. : the set of prime numbers.
+ Def: subset
Set
+ Def: Power set
Let A be a set.
Let
Set operator
Suppose
+ Def: Complement
A complement is the set
+ Def: Intersection
A intersection
+ Def: Union
A union
+ Def: Setminus
A setminus
Relation
Suppose
+ Def: Cartesian product
The cartesian product of
Each object
+ Def: Relation
A relation
If
A relation
Let
- reflexive if
; - symmetric if
; - anti-symmetric if
; - transitive if
.
Function
+ Def: Function
A relation
is the domain. is the co-domain. means uniquely exists. - Such a function is denoted as
.
+ Def: Image and pre-image
If
is the image of ; is the pre-image of .
To denote a function:
- Surely, one can enumerate all pairs in the function.
- But usually, people present the expression.
For example,such that .
For the same example, one can also write
Please distinguish “
- “
” is from domain to co-domain. - “
” is from pre-image to image.
+ Def: A function $f: A\rightarrow B$ is
- Injection: If
- 不同x对应不同y
- Surjection: If
- 任何y都有对应的x
- Bijection: If
is both injection and surjection.
For example, let
is an injection but not a surjection. is a surjection but not an injection. is a bijection.
[!abstract]+ Graph
functionplot--- title: xLabel: yLabel: bounds: [0,1,-1,1] disableZoom: true grid: true --- g(x)= tan(PI*x-PI/2)
Formal Language
To precisely describe mathematics, algorithm, computation, and other procedures, formal languages are used. A language is a set of strings over an alphabet. Formally,
+ Def: Language
A language is a set of strings over a specific alphabet.
+ Def: alphabet
An alphabet is a nonempty finite set.
For example,
Strings
+ Def: string
A string over an alphabet
+ Def: length
If
+ Def: Empty string
The empty string is the string of length 0, denoted by
Let
+ Def: Reverse
The reverse of a string
+ Def: Substring
The string
+ Def: Concatenation
The concatenation of two strings
For example,
+ Language
A language is a set of strings over a specific alphabet.
Proof
In this lecture, we only emphasize several proving techniques.
- Constructive proof
- Prove by contradiction
- Induction
- Diagonal argument
Constructive proof
- Used to prove a predicate with existential quantifiers, like
. - First, construct an object
. - Second, prove
is true.
Prove by contradiction
- Used to prove a proposition
. - First, assume
is false. - Then, derive a contradiction.
- Last, claim
is true.
Induction
- To prove a predicate with universal quantifiers, one can use induction.
- Induction has two variants: simple and strong. But, they are equivalent.
- To prove
:
Simple Induction:
- Prove
as a base case. - Prove
as an induction. - In the second step,
is the inductive hypothesis.
Strong Induction:
- Prove
as a base case. - Prove
. - We assume
are all true in the strong induction.
Cardinality
+ Def: Cardinality
The cardinality of a set
+ Def: Cardinality
The set
Examples:
and are of the same cardinality because we can define a bijection such that . - The set of even numbers
and the set of integers are also of the same cardinality because of the bijection .
Note that the cardinality can be finite and infinite.
Countable
+ Def: Countable
A set is countable if it is finite or its cardinality is same as the set of natural number
Countable means that:
- For every number
in the natural number (no matter how large the number is), - if we count from 0,
- we can eventually reach the number
within a finite time.
In fact, the counting procedure constructs a bijection, mapping a natural number
We denote the cardinality of
To proof an infinite set
Diagonal Proof
Georg Cantor developed a method to prove a set is uncountable.
For example:
+ Theorem
The set of all real numbers in the open interval
The intuition of the proof (by contradiction) is as follows:
- Assume
is countable, then we can "count" the numbers one by one. - Then, we can list all the numbers that we count in a table.
- Construct a real number in
but cannot be reached in the table.
Thus, the set of reals in
Suppose we denote a real number as
Index | Digits | |
---|---|---|
0 | ||
1 | ||
2 | ||
Next, we define a real number
We can see
and are different at digit 0. and are different at digit 1.
Thus,
Here we list some facts about infinite sets:
- The set of real numbers
has cardinality . - The power set
of also has cardinality . has cardinality . - You can make such constructions by taking power sets.
+ Hypothesis (Continuum Hypothesis - CH)
There is no set of cardinality strictly between
So far, people only know:
+ Theorem (Cohen 1964)
CH is unprovable under ZFC.