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As a consequence, the cardinality of the real numbers, which is the same as that of the power set of the integers, is strictly larger than the cardinality of the integers; see Cardinality of the continuum for details. The theorem is named for Georg Cantor, who first stated and proved it at the end of the 19th century.
The best known example of an uncountable set is the set of all real numbers; Cantor's diagonal argument shows that this set is uncountable. The diagonalization proof technique can also be used to show that several other sets are uncountable, such as the set of all infinite sequences of natural numbers (see: (sequence A102288 in the OEIS)), and the set of all subsets of the set ...
Georg Cantor published this proof in 1891, [1] [2]: 20– [3] but it was not his first proof of the uncountability of the real numbers, which appeared in 1874. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] However, it demonstrates a general technique that has since been used in a wide range of proofs, [ 6 ] including the first of Gödel's incompleteness theorems [ 2 ] and ...
Cardinal functions are widely used in topology as a tool for describing various topological properties. [4] [5] Below are some examples.(Note: some authors, arguing that "there are no finite cardinal numbers in general topology", [6] prefer to define the cardinal functions listed below so that they never take on finite cardinal numbers as values; this requires modifying some of the definitions ...
Rational numbers are algebraic numbers that satisfy a polynomial of degree 1, while quadratic irrationals are algebraic numbers that satisfy a polynomial of degree 2. For both these sets of numbers we have a way to construct a sequence of natural numbers (a n) with the property that each sequence gives a unique real number and such that this real number belongs to the corresponding set if and ...
The goal of a cardinal assignment is to assign to every set A a specific, unique set that is only dependent on the cardinality of A. This is in accordance with Cantor 's original vision of cardinals: to take a set and abstract its elements into canonical "units" and collect these units into another set, such that the only thing special about ...
This defines an injection from the quadratic irrationals to quadruples of integers, so their cardinality is at most countable; since on the other hand every square root of a prime number is a distinct quadratic irrational, and there are countably many prime numbers, they are at least countable; hence the quadratic irrationals are a countable set.
Cantor gave two proofs that the cardinality of the set of integers is strictly smaller than that of the set of real numbers (see Cantor's first uncountability proof and Cantor's diagonal argument). His proofs, however, give no indication of the extent to which the cardinality of the integers is less than that of the real numbers.