Countable set

In mathematics, a set is countable if it has the same cardinality (the number of elements of the set) as some
subset of the set of natural numbers N = {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}.[a] Equivalently, a set S is countable if there exists
an injective function f  : S → N from S to N; it simply means that every element in S corresponds to a
different element in N.

A countable set is either a finite set or a countably infinite set. Whether finite or infinite, the elements of a
countable set can always be counted one at a time and — although the counting may never finish due to the
infinite number of the elements to be counted — every element of the set is associated with a unique natural
number.

Georg Cantor introduced the concept of countable sets, contrasting sets that are countable with those that
are uncountable. Today, countable sets form the foundation of a branch of mathematics called discrete
mathematics.

Contents
A note on terminology
Definition
History
Introduction
Formal overview
Minimal model of set theory is countable
Total orders
See also
Notes
Citations
References

A note on terminology
Although the terms "countable" and "countably infinite" as defined here are quite common, the
terminology is not universal.[1] An alternative style uses countable to mean what is here called countably
infinite, and at most countable to mean what is here called countable.[2][3] To avoid ambiguity, one may
limit oneself to the terms "at most countable" and "countably infinite", although with respect to concision
this is the worst of both worlds. The reader is advised to check the definition in use when encountering the
term "countable" in the literature.

The terms enumerable[4] and denumerable[5][6] may also be used, e.g. referring to countable and
countably infinite respectively,[7] but as definitions vary the reader is once again advised to check the
definition in use.[8]
Definition
The most concise definition is in terms of cardinality. A set S is countable if its cardinality |S| is less than or
equal to (aleph-null), the cardinality of the set of natural numbers N. A set S is countably infinite if
. A set is uncountable if it is not countable, i.e. its cardinality is greater than ; the reader is
referred to Uncountable set for further discussion. [9]

For every set S , the following propositions are equivalent:

S is countable.[5]
There exists an injective function from S to N.[10][11]
S is empty or there exists a surjective function from N to S.[11]
There exists a bijective mapping between S and a subset of N.[12]
S is either finite or countably infinite.[13]
Similarly, the following propositions are equivalent:

S is countably infinite.
There is an injective and surjective (and therefore bijective) mapping between S and N.
S has a one-to-one correspondence with N.[14]
The elements of S can be arranged in an infinite sequence , where is distinct
from for and every element of S is listed.[15][16]

History
In 1874, in his first set theory article, Cantor proved that the set of real numbers is uncountable, thus
showing that not all infinite sets are countable.[17] In 1878, he used one-to-one correspondences to define
and compare cardinalities.[18] In 1883, he extended the natural numbers with his infinite ordinals, and used
sets of ordinals to produce an infinity of sets having different infinite cardinalities.[19]

Introduction
A set is a collection of elements, and may be described in many ways. One way is simply to list all of its
elements; for example, the set consisting of the integers 3, 4, and 5 may be denoted {3, 4, 5}, called roster
form.[20] This is only effective for small sets, however; for larger sets, this would be time-consuming and
error-prone. Instead of listing every single element, sometimes an ellipsis ("...") is used to represent many
elements between the starting element and the end element in a set, if the writer believes that the reader can
easily guess what ... represents; for example, {1, 2, 3, ..., 100} presumably denotes the set of integers from
1 to 100. Even in this case, however, it is still possible to list all the elements, because number of elements
in the set is finite.

Some sets are infinite; these sets have more than n elements where n is any integer that can be specified.
(No matter how large the specified integer n is, such as n = 9 × 10 32, infinite sets have more than n
elements.) For example, the set of natural numbers, denotable by {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...},[a] has infinitely many
elements, and we cannot use any natural number to give its size. Nonetheless, it turns out that infinite sets
do have a well-defined notion of size (or more properly, cardinality, the technical term for the number of
elements in a set), and not all infinite sets have the same cardinality.
To understand what this means, we first examine what it does not mean. For
example, there are infinitely many odd integers, infinitely many even integers, and
(hence) infinitely many integers overall. However, it turns out that the number of
even integers, which is the same as the number of odd integers, is also the same as
the number of integers overall. This is because we can arrange things such that, for
every integer, there is a distinct even integer:
Bijective mapping
from integer to even
numbers
or, more generally, (see picture). What we have done here is arrange the
integers and the even integers into a one-to-one correspondence (or bijection),
which is a function that maps between two sets such that each element of each set corresponds to a single
element in the other set.

However, not all infinite sets have the same cardinality. For example, Georg Cantor (who introduced this
concept) demonstrated that the real numbers cannot be put into one-to-one correspondence with the natural
numbers (non-negative integers), and therefore that the set of real numbers has a greater cardinality than the
set of natural numbers.

Formal overview
By definition, a set S is countable if there exists an injective function f  : S → N from S to the natural
numbers N = {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}. It simply means that every element in S has the correspondence to a different
element in N.

It might seem natural to divide the sets into different classes: put all the sets containing one element
together; all the sets containing two elements together; ...; finally, put together all infinite sets and consider
them as having the same size.
This view is not tenable, however, under the natural definition of size.

To elaborate this, we need the concept of a bijection. Although a "bijection" may seem a more advanced
concept than a number, the usual development of mathematics in terms of set theory defines functions
before numbers, as they are based on much simpler sets. This is where the concept of a bijection comes in:
define the correspondence

a ↔ 1, b ↔ 2, c ↔ 3

Since every element of {a, b, c} is paired with precisely one element of {1, 2, 3}, and vice versa, this
defines a bijection.

We now generalize this situation; we define that two sets are of the same size, if and only if there is a
bijection between them. For all finite sets, this gives us the usual definition of "the same size".

As for the case of infinite sets, consider the sets A = {1, 2, 3, ... }, the set of positive integers, and B = {2, 4,
6, ... }, the set of even positive integers. We claim that, under our definition, these sets have the same size,
and that therefore B is countably infinite. Recall that to prove this, we need to exhibit a bijection between
them. This can be achieved using the assignment n ↔ 2n, so that

1 ↔ 2, 2 ↔ 4, 3 ↔ 6, 4 ↔ 8, ....

As in the earlier example, every element of A has been paired off with precisely one element of B, and vice
versa. Hence they have the same size. This is an example of a set of the same size as one of its proper
subsets, which is impossible for finite sets.
Likewise, the set of all ordered pairs of natural numbers (the Cartesian product of two sets of natural
numbers, N × N) is countably infinite, as can be seen by following a path like the one in the picture:

The resulting mapping proceeds as follows:

0 ↔ (0, 0), 1 ↔ (1, 0), 2 ↔ (0, 1), 3 ↔ (2, 0), 4

↔ (1, 1), 5 ↔ (0, 2), 6 ↔ (3, 0), ....

This mapping covers all such ordered pairs.

This form of triangular mapping recursively

generalizes to n-tuples of natural numbers, i.e., (a1 , a2 ,
a3 , ..., an ) where ai and n are natural numbers, by
repeatedly mapping the first two elements of a n-tuple
to a natural number. For example, (0, 2, 3) can be
written as ((0, 2), 3). Then (0, 2) maps to 5 so ((0, 2),
3) maps to (5, 3), then (5, 3) maps to 39. Since a
different 2-tuple, that is a pair such as (a, b), maps to a
different natural number, a difference between two n-
tuples by a single element is enough to ensure the n- The Cantor pairing function assigns one natural
tuples being mapped to different natural numbers. So,
number to each pair of natural numbers
an injection from the set of n-tuples to the set of natural
numbers N is proved. For the set of n-tuples made by
the Cartesian product of finitely many different sets, each element in each tuple has the correspondence to a
natural number, so every tuple can be written in natural numbers then the same logic is applied to prove the
theorem.

Theorem — The Cartesian product of finitely many countable sets is countable.[21][b]

The set of all integers Z and the set of all rational numbers Q may intuitively seem much bigger than N. But
looks can be deceiving. If a pair is treated as the numerator and denominator of a vulgar fraction (a fraction
in the form of a/b where a and b ≠ 0 are integers), then for every positive fraction, we can come up with a
distinct natural number corresponding to it. This representation also includes the natural numbers, since
every natural number is also a fraction N/1. So we can conclude that there are exactly as many positive
rational numbers as there are positive integers. This is also true for all rational numbers, as can be seen
below.

Theorem  —  Z (the set of all integers) and Q (the set of all rational numbers) are
countable.[c]

In a similar manner, the set of algebraic numbers is countable.[23][d]

Sometimes more than one mapping is useful: a set A to be shown as countable is one-to-one mapped
(injection) to another set B, then A is proved as countable if B is one-to-one mapped to the set of natural
numbers. For example, the set of positive rational numbers can easily be one-to-one mapped to the set of
natural number pairs (2-tuples) because p/q maps to (p, q). Since the set of natural number pairs is one-to-
one mapped (actually one-to-one correspondence or bijection) to the set of natural numbers as shown
above, the positive rational number set is proved as countable.
 Theorem — Any finite union of countable sets is countable.[24][25][e]

With the foresight of knowing that there are uncountable sets, we can wonder whether or not this last result
can be pushed any further. The answer is "yes" and "no", we can extend it, but we need to assume a new
axiom to do so.

Theorem  —  (Assuming the axiom of countable choice) The union of countably many
countable sets is countable.[f]

For example, given countable sets a, b, c, ...

Using a variant of the triangular enumeration we saw

above:

a0 maps to 0
a1 maps to 1
b0 maps to 2
a2 maps to 3
b1 maps to 4
c0 maps to 5
a3 maps to 6
b2 maps to 7 Enumeration for countable number of countable
c1 maps to 8 sets
d0 maps to 9
a4 maps to 10
...

This only works if the sets a, b, c, ... are disjoint. If not, then the union is even smaller and is therefore also
countable by a previous theorem.

We need the axiom of countable choice to index all the sets a, b, c, ... simultaneously.

Theorem — The set of all finite-length sequences of natural numbers is countable.

This set is the union of the length-1 sequences, the length-2 sequences, the length-3 sequences, each of
which is a countable set (finite Cartesian product). So we are talking about a countable union of countable
sets, which is countable by the previous theorem.

Theorem — The set of all finite subsets of the natural numbers is countable.

The elements of any finite subset can be ordered into a finite sequence. There are only countably many
finite sequences, so also there are only countably many finite subsets.

Theorem — Let S and T be sets.

1. If the function f : S → T is injective and T is countable then S is countable.

2. If the function g : S → T is surjective and S is countable then T is countable.

These follow from the definitions of countable set as injective / surjective functions.[g]

Cantor's theorem asserts that if A is a set and P(A) is its power set, i.e. the set of all subsets of A, then
there is no surjective function from A to P(A). A proof is given in the article Cantor's theorem. As an
immediate consequence of this and the Basic Theorem above we have:

Proposition — The set P(N) is not countable; i.e. it is uncountable.

For an elaboration of this result see Cantor's diagonal argument.

The set of real numbers is uncountable,[h] and so is the set of all infinite sequences of natural numbers.

Minimal model of set theory is countable

If there is a set that is a standard model (see inner model) of ZFC set theory, then there is a minimal
standard model (see Constructible universe). The Löwenheim–Skolem theorem can be used to show that
this minimal model is countable. The fact that the notion of "uncountability" makes sense even in this
model, and in particular that this model M contains elements that are:

subsets of M, hence countable,

but uncountable from the point of view of M,

was seen as paradoxical in the early days of set theory, see Skolem's paradox for more.

The minimal standard model includes all the algebraic numbers and all effectively computable
transcendental numbers, as well as many other kinds of numbers.

Total orders
Countable sets can be totally ordered in various ways, for example:

Well-orders (see also ordinal number):

The usual order of natural numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...)
The integers in the order (0, 1, 2, 3, ...; −1, −2, −3, ...)
Other (not well orders):
The usual order of integers (..., −3, −2, −1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...)
The usual order of rational numbers (Cannot be explicitly written as an ordered list!)
In both examples of well orders here, any subset has a least element; and in both examples of non-well
orders, some subsets do not have a least element.
This is the key definition that determines whether a total
order is also a well order.

See also
Aleph number
Counting
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel
Uncountable set

Notes
a. Since there is an obvious bijection between N and N* = {1, 2, 3, ...}, it makes no
difference whether one considers 0 a natural number or not. In any case, this article follows
ISO 31-11 and the standard convention in mathematical logic, which takes 0 as a natural
number.
b. Proof: Observe that N × N is countable as a consequence of the definition because the
function f : N × N → N given by f(m, n) = 2 m3 n is injective.[22] It then follows that the
Cartesian product of any two countable sets is countable, because if A and B are two
countable sets there are surjections f : N → A and g : N → B. So
f × g : N × N → A × B
is a surjection from the countable set N × N to the set A × B and the Corollary implies
A × B is countable. This result generalizes to the Cartesian product of any finite collection of
countable sets and the proof follows by induction on the number of sets in the collection.

c. Proof: The integers Z are countable because the function f : Z → N given by f(n) = 2 n if n
is non-negative and f(n) = 3 −n if n is negative, is an injective function. The rational numbers
Q are countable because the function g : Z × N → Q given by g(m, n) = m/(n + 1) is a
surjection from the countable set Z × N to the rationals Q.
d. Proof: Per definition, every algebraic number (including complex numbers) is a root of a
polynomial with integer coefficients. Given an algebraic number , let
be a polynomial with integer coefficients such that is
the kth root of the polynomial, where the roots are sorted by absolute value from small to big,
then sorted by argument from small to big. We can define an injection (i. e. one-to-one)
function f : A → Q given by , while is the n-th
prime.
e. Proof: If Ai is a countable set for each i in I={1,...,n}, then for each n there is a surjective
function g i : N → Ai and hence the function

given by G(i, m) = g i(m) is a surjection. Since I × N is countable, the union is

countable.
f. Proof: As in the finite case, but I=N and we use the axiom of countable choice to pick for
each i in N a surjection g i from the non-empty collection of surjections from N to Ai.
 g. Proof: For (1) observe that if T is countable there is an injective function h : T → N. Then if f :
S → T is injective the composition h o f : S → N is injective, so S is countable.
For (2)
observe that if S is countable, either S is empty or there is a surjective function h : N → S.
Then if g : S → T is surjective, either S and T are both empty, or the composition g o h : N →
T is surjective. In either case T is countable.
h. See Cantor's first uncountability proof, and also Finite intersection property#Applications for
a topological proof.

Citations
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