-SetsandSetOperations.ppt

* Here the understanding is that the blue/green area is empty! * In general, any kind of object or structure, whether simple or complex, can be a member of a set. In particular, sets themselves (being structures) can be members of sets. If you don’t understand the distinction between 1, {1}, {{1}}, you’ll make endless silly mistakes. 1 is a number, the number one. {1} is NOT A NUMBER AT ALL! It is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TYPE OF OBJECT! Namely, it is a set. What kind of set? It is a singleton set, by which we mean a set that contains exactly one element. In this case, its element happens to be the number 1. Now, what is {{1}}? It is also a set, and also a singleton set, but it is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TYPE of singleton set. To see this, notice that {1} is a set of numbers, whereas {{1}} is not a set of numbers at all! It is a SET OF SETS. Its single element is not a number at all, but is a SET. Namely, the set {1}. In other words, {{1}} is the singleton set whose member is the singleton set whose member is 1. Whereas, {1} is just the singleton set whose member is 1. And, 1 is just 1. All of these are distinct objects and you’ve got to learn to keep them separate! Otherwise, you’ll never have a chance of understanding data types in programming languages. For example, in most languages, we can have an array of numbers, or an array of arrays of numbers, etc. These are all completely different types of objects and can never be compatible with each other. * In general, any kind of object or structure, whether simple or complex, can be a member of a set. In particular, sets themselves (being structures) can be members of sets. If you don’t understand the distinction between 1, {1}, {{1}}, you’ll make endless silly mistakes. 1 is a number, the number one. {1} is NOT A NUMBER AT ALL! It is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TYPE OF OBJECT! Namely, it is a set. What kind of set? It is a singleton set, by which we mean a set that contains exactly one element