Countable Set equals Range of Sequence

From ProofWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Theorem

Let $S$ be a set.


Then $S$ is countable if and only if there exists a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ where $N$ is a subset of $\N$ such that $S$ equals the range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$.


Proof

Necessary Condition

Assume that $S$ is countable.

We need to prove that there exists a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$, $N \subseteq \N$, such that $S$ equals the range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$.

The range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ is defined as $\set {s_i: i \in N}$.


Case 1. $S$ is empty.


Empty Set is Countable confirms that $S$ is countable.

Define the empty sequence as $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in \O}$.

The range of the empty sequence is $\set {s_i: i \in \O} = \O$.

$S$ equals the range of the empty sequence as $S$ equals $\O$.

This finishes the argument for this case.


Case $2$. $S$ is finite and not empty.


Let $n \in \N_{>0}$ be the number of elements of $S$.

Define a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{1 \mathop \le \mathop i \mathop \le \mathop n}$ by going through every element of S:

Let $s_1$ be any element of $S$.
Let $s_2$ be any element of $S \setminus \set {s_1}$.
...
Let $s_n$ be the single element of $S \setminus \set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n - 1}$.

From this definition follows that every element of $S$ equals some $s_i$, $1 \le i \le n$.

So, $S \subseteq \set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n}$.

Every number $s_i$, $1 \le i \le n$, equals some element of $S$.

So, $\set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n} \subseteq S$.

Accordingly, $S = \set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n}$.

By the definition of range, $\set {s_i: 1 \le i \le n}$ equals the range of the sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{1 \mathop \le \mathop i \mathop \le \mathop n}$.

Therefore, $S$ equals the range of $\sequence {s_i}_{1 \mathop \le \mathop i \mathop \le \mathop n}$.

This finishes the proof for case 2.


Case $3$. $S$ is infinite.


Since $S$ is countable and infinite, $S$ is countably infinite.

By the definition of countably infinite, $S$ can be written:

$\set {t_0, t_1, \ldots, t_n, \ldots}$

where $n$ runs over all the natural numbers, $\N$.

In other words, we have:

$S = \set {t_i: i \in \N}$


We intend to produce a sequence from $S$.

We start with the empty sequence.

Using $\N$, the set to which $S$ is equivalent, we put all the elements of $S$ one by one into the sequence.

The result is $\sequence {t_i}_{i \mathop \in \N}$.

The range of $\sequence {t_i}_{i \mathop \in \N}$ is $\set {t_i: i \in \N}$, which equals $S$.

In other words, $S$ is the range of the sequence $\sequence {t_i}_{i \mathop \in \N}$.

This finishes the necessary part of the proof.

$\blacksquare$


Sufficient Condition

Assume that there exists a sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ where $N$ is a subset of $\N$ such that $S$ equals the range of that sequence.

We need to prove that $S$ is countable.


Case 1. $S$ is finite.


By the definition of countable $S$ is countable.


Case 2. $S$ is infinite.


We know that $S$ equals the range of the sequence $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ where $N$ is an infinite subset of $\N$.

The range of $\sequence {s_i}_{i \mathop \in N}$ is defined as $\set {s_i: i \in N}$, so we have

$S = \set {s_i: i \in N}$


We need to prove that $S$ is countably infinite.

That a set is countably infinite, means that it is of the form:

$\set {t_0, t_1, \ldots, t_n, \ldots}$

where $n$ runs over all the natural numbers, $\N$.

Accordingly, we need to show that a set $\set {t_i: i \in \N}$ exists such that:

$S = \set {t_i: i \in \N}$


Assume that $N = \N$.

Then $S$ is countably infinite by definition.


The only other alternative is $N \subset \N$.

Define:

$t_i = s_i$ for every $i$ in $N$
$t_i = s_1$ for every $i$ in $\N \setminus N$

Thus, $t_i$ is defined for every $i$ in $\N$.

We have:

\(\ds \set {t_i: i \in \N}\) \(=\) \(\ds \set {t_i: i \in N} \cup \set {t_i: i \in \N \setminus N}\) as $\N = N \cup \paren {\N \setminus N}$
\(\ds \) \(=\) \(\ds \set {s_i: i \in N} \cup \set {t_i: i \in \N \setminus N}\) as $s_i = t_i$ for every $i$ in $N$
\(\ds \) \(=\) \(\ds S \cup \set {t_i: i \in \N \setminus N}\) by the definition of $S$
\(\ds \) \(=\) \(\ds S \cup \set {s_1}\) as $t_i = s_1$ for every $i$ in $\N \setminus N$
\(\ds \) \(=\) \(\ds S\) as $\set {s_1} \subset S$ as $s_1 \in S$

All in all, $S = \set {t_i: i \in \N}$.

Therefore, $S$ is countably infinite and thus countable.

This finishes the last part of the proof.

$\blacksquare$


Sources