Mathematical Logic...

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AuthorTopic: Mathematical Logic...
Law Bringer
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It's been significantly longer since I've studied sets, but here's how I reason through the first two.

1. R contains "more" elements than N. Correspondance isn't exactly an accurate test, but it makes the answer obvious in this case. (An interesting thing to ponder is the set of natural numbers and the set of square numbers. While all square numbers are natural and not all natural numbers are square, the sets are the "same" infinite size because each natural number, n, corresponds to one and only one square number, n^2.)

2. R is the same size as (0,1). The difference is one of scale, not of elements. Again, this isn't formal, but you can hopefully see why they are the same size.

The two above neither prove nor disprove the existence of a set between N and R in size.

—Alorael, who believes that the second step is somewhat arguable. He's willing to propose that in this case such a definition of sizes of infinity is more useful than another definition, although he has no particular grounds for doing so.
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Question 4: Where does Q (the set of rational numbers (ie fractions)) fit into all this? Is is bigger or smaller or the same size as N? As R?

[ Friday, September 09, 2005 08:45: Message edited by: Khoth ]

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Shaper
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I suppose that would've been interesting too, but the fact that so many people said false indicates to me that they would say it is similar in size to N...

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Lt. Sullust
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I wondered, because Alorael's argument as stated would show |N| < |Q|.

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Lifecrafter
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quote:
Originally written by Lt. Sullust:

Continuum Hypothesis(simplified): There is a set whose size lies between that of the Real Numbers and the Natural Numbers.
I thought the Continuum Hypothesis was that there is NO set whose cardinality is larger than that of the natural numbers and smaller than that of the real numbers (e.g., the rational numbers have the same cardinality as the natural numbers).

I think it's usually accepted as an axiom.
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Law Bringer
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That's a good point, Khoth, but it will take someone with more knowledge of this than I have to prove or disprove it. Let's define |I| as the set of irrational numbers. I'm confident that |N| < |R| and that |N| < |Q|. I'm not sure if |I| < |R| or |I| = |R|, but it's not relevant, because I am reasonably sure that |Q| < |R| and |Q| < |I|. So yes, that would make the set of rational numbers smaller than the set of real numbers. The set of irrational numbers might prove the Continuum Hypothesis by example as well, but I'm not at all confident of it.

—Alorael, who actually leans towards the belief that |I| = |R|, although he can't justify it in any way.
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Nuke and Pave
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Looks like I forgot most of number theory.

However, I still remember how to answer Khoth's question #4. Here is a hint.

Let's look at a quadrant in coordinate plane. The points in it have coordinates (0,0), (0,1), (0,2), (1, 0), (1,1), etc.
We can fill this quadrant with natural numbers if we do it 1 diagonal at a time:

0 1 2 3 4 ... <- x-coordinates
1 1 2 4 7
2 3 5 8
3 6 9
4 10
|
y-coordinates

This method, extended to all 4 quadrants, shows that |N| = number of points in Cartesian coordinate plane.

However, I completely forgot how to prove that some infinities are smaller than others.

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You make a list of all the real numbers, then show that actually you failed. The standard proof is to muck about with decimal expansions, but there are other ways.

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mathworld.wolfram.com says that the set of rational numbers does in fact have the same cardinality as the natural numbers. (Incidentally, so does the set of algebraic numbers.)

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And so does the set of real numbers which can be defined.

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The continuum hypothesis is accepted as an axiom by some, but not by others. I voted "false" on question 3, because in my view CH (and even more so the Generalised Continuum Hypothesis: GCH) unnecessarily restricts the size of the universe. Some results that I like (and many beautiful counter-examples) occur if you postulate Proper Forcing Axiom (PFA) or MA+¬CH.

Forcing, by the way, is a fascinating methodology of taking a universe (=everything) and making it bigger (ie adding some new things that weren't included in everything). I recommend a book called "Set Theory" by Kenneth Kunen. However, that book is quite challenging.

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Shaper
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quote:
Originally written by Alex:

quote:
Originally written by Lt. Sullust:

Continuum Hypothesis(simplified): There is a set whose size lies between that of the Real Numbers and the Natural Numbers.
I thought the Continuum Hypothesis was that there is NO set whose cardinality is larger than that of the natural numbers and smaller than that of the real numbers (e.g., the rational numbers have the same cardinality as the natural numbers).

I think it's usually accepted as an axiom.

I felt that phrasing the question in that way might give away the first answer too easily...

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Lt. Sullust
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wow what math nerds, HHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAh

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Electric Sheep One
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At the risk of bringing people down, it should be pointed out that there are lots of kinds of size, and what has been discussed in this thread is the relatively arcane version called 'cardinality'. Just as valid, and of a lot more practical use, is metrical size, according to which [0,1] is indeed much smaller than R. This is not set theory anymore, but geometry; but so what?

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Law Bringer
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But geometry has nothing to do with the question under discussion! Don't sap ivory towers!

—Alorael, who will consider the distance from a point to another point 1 unit away to be infinite if he pleases, all right? The distance from a point to another point twice as far away will be twice as infinitely far away, which is actually the same distance. Then some horrible thing with many tentacles will probably come through an acute angle and start Galactic Coring everyone.
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I reckon it's reveal the answers time.

|N| < |R|:
This proof isn't my favourite, but it doesn't have as many subscripts so it's easier to put on a forum.
It's obviously not true that |N| > |R|, because N is a subset of R.
Suppose |N| = |R|. If this was the case, we could make a big list of all the real numbers, like so:
1: 23.553456765...
2:  4.0000000...
3:  3.14159....
.
.
.
Now we take the diagonal after the decimal point (shown in bold), which makes the number 0.501....
Then we change every 5 to a 6, and every non-5 to a 5, getting 0.655....
This number can't be the first in our list, because the first digit is different. It can't be the second, because the second digit is different, and so on.
So it can't be on our list. But our list was supposed to be of all the real numbers. Contradiction, so the original assumption (that |N| = |R|) must be wrong.

|(0,1)| = |R|
Consider the function f(x) = tan(90x) (in degrees)
This function takes everything in (0,1) to something in R, and everything in R is covered by this. So there is a one-to-one mapping, so the sets are the same size.

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Continuum hypothesis: It is consistent for it to be true, and consistent for it to be false. So there is a model of set theory which has a set of size between N and R, which is good enough for me. :-)

Edit: Formatting

[ Monday, September 12, 2005 08:31: Message edited by: Khoth ]

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I hurt now.

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Master
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Eh, I'll just leave it that if |N| = inifinity, then |R| = infinity squared. :P

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quote:
Originally written by Benny Boy:

Eh, I'll just leave it that if |N| = inifinity, then |R| = infinity squared. :P
No no, |N|^2=|N|.

|R|=2^|N|

Seriously :P

Edit: Fixed an idiotic mistake. Goodness, my set theory is rusty...

[ Tuesday, September 13, 2005 09:57: Message edited by: Micawber ]

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Shaper
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I'm not completely convinced by that little statement of yours that |R| = |P(N)

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Lt. Sullust
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It is, nonetheless, provable in ZFC. I leave the details as exercise for the reader.

Edit: Always wanted to say that

[ Tuesday, September 13, 2005 11:20: Message edited by: Micawber ]

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Law Bringer
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quote:
I leave the details as exercise for the reader.
That is the single most annoying statement I've come across in any text. The "details" frequently involve hours or days of brain straining. :rolleyes:

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Shaper
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Alrighty, I've done some digging...

S = the set of all sequences of 0's and 1's

|P(N)| = |S|
|R| = |S|

Thus we have |P(N)| = |R|.

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Lt. Sullust
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Yup, that's the way Cantor proved it, in 1895.

The power set of N is, of course, identifiable with the set of all mappings N -> {0,1}. And every real number has a binary expansion.

Aran, I totally agree. But it's so much fun when you're the one setting the challenge. I really must write a textbook some time.

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