Puzzle

A census taker interviews a woman in a house.

Census Taker: Who lives here?
Woman: My husband and I and our three daughters.
CT: What are the ages of your your daughters?
W: The product of their ages is 36 and the sum of their ages is the
house number.
The census taker looks at the house number, thinks, and says
CT: You havent given me enough information to determine the
ages.
W: Oh, youre right. Let me also say that my eldest daughter is
asleep upstairs.
CT: Ah! Thank you very much!
What are the ages of the daughters?

Assumption: the ages are nonnegative integers.

Fact: the product of ages is 36.
Let P be the set of all ordered triples (x, y , z) with x
whose product is 36.

Note that we allow the numbers to be equal because the woman

may have twins or triplets.
Assumption: if not twins/triplets, age must dier by at least 1.
So, P =
{(36, 1, 1), (18, 2, 1), (12, 3, 1), (9, 4, 1), (9, 2, 2), (6, 6, 1), (6, 3, 2), (4, 3, 3)}.
If house number is 21, what are the ages of the daughters?

What does it mean that CT did not have enough information?

How does the womans answer resolve the problem?

Sets
A set is a collection of distinct objects.
The objects in a set are its elements or members.
When x is an element of A, we write x 2 A and say x belongs to
A.
When x is not in A, we write x 62 A.
Examples:
A = {1, 5, 9, 21}

B = {True, False}

C = {Red, Blue, 10, Yes, Penguin}

Sets
If every element of A belongs to B, then A is a subset of B, and
B contains A; we write A B or B A.
Sets A and B are equal, written A = B, if they have the same
elements.
The empty set, written ;, is the unique set with no elements.

A proper subset of a set A is a subset of A that is not A itself.

The power set of a set A is the set of all subsets of A.
Example:
Let A = {0, 1}

The power set of A is {;, {0}, {1}, {0, 1}}.

Some Important Sets

1. N = {1, 2, 3, 4, . . .}, the set of natural numbers

2. Z = {. . . , 2, 1, 0, 1, 2, . . .}, the set of integers

3. Q = {p/q : p, q 2 Z, q 6= 0}, the set of rational numbers

4. R, the set of real numbers

These sets satisfy the following containment relationship:

N Z Q R.

Sets
Set builder notation
This is used to define or describe sets that are too big or complex
to list between braces.
This appears in the following form:
X = {expression : rule}.
So, X is the set of all things of the form expression that satisfy
the rule.
Examples:

Q = {p/q : p, q 2 Z, q 6= 0}, the set of rational numbers

Even numbers: {2k : k 2 Z}
Odd numbers: {2k + 1 : k 2 Z}
[n] = {1, 2, . . . , n} = {k 2 N : k n}
The interval ( 6, 1) = {x 2 R : 6 < x < 1}
A = {x 2 R : x 2 + 5x < 6}

Sets

An ordered pair is a list (x, y ) of two things x and y .

The Cartesian product of two sets A and B is another set,
denoted A B and defined as A B = {(a, b) : a 2 A, b 2 B}.
A k-tuple is a list of the form (x1 , x2 , . . . , xk ).

Ak = {(x1 , x2 , . . . , xk ) : xi 2 A for each i = 1, 2, . . . , k}

Sets

Set Operations
Let A and B be two sets. Then,
Union A [ B = {x : x 2 A or x 2 B}

Intersection A \ B = {x : x 2 A and x 2 B}
Dierence A

B = {x 2 A : x 62 B}

Two sets are disjoint if their intersection is the empty set.

If the set A is contained in some universe U, then the complement
of A, written Ac , is the set of elements in U that are not in A.

Properties/Laws of Sets
Let A, B, C be sets and let W be a universal set containing all
three sets.
Commutativity: A [ B = B [ A and A \ B = B \ A
Associativity: A [ (B [ C ) = (A [ B) [ C and

A \ (B \ C ) = (A \ B) \ C

Distributivity: A [ (B \ C ) = (A [ B) \ (A [ C ) and

A \ (B [ C ) = (A \ B) [ (A \ C )

A [ ; = A, A \ W = A

A \ ; = ;, A [ W = W

A \ Ac = ;, A [ Ac = W
(A [ B)c = Ac \ B c
(A \ B)c = Ac [ B c

If A B and B C , then A C

write a counter example to prove that the given statement is wrong .

Set Inclusion
The following are equivalent (meaning, if one of the statements is
true, then they are all true):
AB

A\B =A
A[B =B
A

Bc

B=;

Ac

Note that the word and refers to the intersection and the word
or refers to the union of sets.
Let E be the set of even numbers, let O be the set of odd
numbers, and let P be the set of prime numbers.
Example: If x is even and prime, then x = 2 as E \ P = {2}.
Example: If x is even or odd, then x can be any integer

Set Inclusion
Example:
Let A = {x 2 R : x 2 x}, let B = {0, 1}, and C = [0, 1].
i. Show that B A but that A 6 B.
ii. Show that C A.

Answer.
(i) To prove that B A, we need to check that all members of B
are members of A. As B only has two members, we can check
individually.
As 02 = 0 ) 0 2 A

and

12 = 1 ) 1 2 A,

it follows that B A.

To show that A 6 B, it is enough to find just one member of A

which is not a member of B. Indeed, as 1/2 2 A but 1/2 62 B, we
have A 6 B.

Set Inclusion
As C has infinitely many elements, we cannot individually check
that all its members also belong to A.
We need a way to check everything simultaneously.
An argument of this type is usually of the form:
pick an arbitrary element x 2 C (do not specify which one, it

could be any)
use a property that all items in C have
show that this implies x 2 A

Answer.
(ii). Pick an arbitrary item x 2 C . Note that this means
0 x 1. As x 0, we can multiply both sides of the inequality
x 1 by x, and we get x 2 x. Therefore, x satisfies the condition
for membership in A (that is, x 2 A). It follows that C A.

Equality of Sets
It is possible to give dierent descriptions to describe the same set.
For example, let
A = {countries that share a border with Nepal} and
B = {countries with a population of more than 1 billion people }.
One can check that A = B = {China, India}.

There are many instances when we want to determine whether two

sets A and B, that are defined in dierent ways, are actually equal
or not.
How can we determine this?
1. A = B if and only if A B and B A.

2. To show A B, we must show that every x 2 A also belongs

to B.
3. If A 6 B, enough to find one thing in A which is not in B.

Equality of Sets

Exercises:
Show that {x 2 R : x 2 + 5x < 6} = ( 6, 1)
De Morgans Law: (A [ B)c = Ac \ B c
Let A = {(x, y ) :
that A = B.

x
y

y
x

2} and B = {(x, y ) : xy > 0}. Show

Let S = {x : |x/(x + 1)| 1} and let T = [ 1/2, 1). Show

that S = T .

Exercise

Let W be the set of ordered pairs of nonzero numbers. That is,

W = {(x, y ) : x, y 6= 0}.
Let A = {(x, y ) 2 W : yx + yx
B = {(x, y ) 2 W : xy > 0}.

2} and

Show that A = B.

We have to show that A B and B A.

We will show B c Ac and B A.