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This article lists mathematical properties and laws of sets, involving the set-theoretic operations of union, intersection, and complementation and the relations of set equality and set inclusion. It also provides systematic procedures for evaluating expressions, and performing calculations, involving these operations and relations.
Equality is also the only relation on a set that is reflexive, symmetric and antisymmetric. In algebraic expressions, equal variables may be substituted for one another, a facility that is not available for equivalence related variables. The equivalence classes of an equivalence relation can substitute for one another, but not individuals ...
The algebra of sets is the set-theoretic analogue of the algebra of numbers. Just as arithmetic addition and multiplication are associative and commutative, so are set union and intersection; just as the arithmetic relation "less than or equal" is reflexive, antisymmetric and transitive, so is the set relation of "subset".
If A is a set, then the absolute complement of A (or simply the complement of A) is the set of elements not in A (within a larger set that is implicitly defined). In other words, let U be a set that contains all the elements under study; if there is no need to mention U, either because it has been previously specified, or it is obvious and unique, then the absolute complement of A is the ...
The set of the equivalence classes is sometimes called the quotient set or the quotient space of by , and is denoted by /. When the set S {\displaystyle S} has some structure (such as a group operation or a topology ) and the equivalence relation ∼ {\displaystyle \,\sim \,} is compatible with this structure, the quotient set often inherits a ...
The first use of an equals sign, equivalent to + = in modern notation. From The Whetstone of Witte (1557) by Robert Recorde. Recorde's introduction of =."And to avoid the tedious repetition of these words: "is equal to" I will set as I do often in work use, a pair of parallels, or twin lines of one [the same] length, thus: ==, because no 2 things can be more equal." [5]
Repeated symmetric difference is in a sense equivalent to an operation on a multitude of sets (possibly with multiple appearances of the same set) giving the set of elements which are in an odd number of sets. The symmetric difference of a collection of sets contains just elements which are in an odd number of the sets in the collection
In set theory, the axiom of extensionality states that two sets are equal if and only if they contain the same elements. In mathematics formalized in set theory, it is common to identify relations—and, most importantly, functions —with their extension as stated above, so that it is impossible for two relations or functions with the same ...