Theorem. Let [P(X )| = 2". Proof. The proof is by induction on the number of elements of \. =n. Then For the base case, suppose |X| = 0). No = (). But the empty set is the only subset of itself, so [P(X j= =l= 30, Now the induction step. Suppose |X| =n; by the induction hypothesis, we know that |P(X y= =2?", Let Y be a set with »+1 elements, namely ¥ = X U {a}. There are two kinds of subsets of : those that include a and those that don’t. The first are exactly the subsets of VY, and there are 9” of them. The latter are sets of the form 4 LJ {a}, where Z € P(X \; since there are 3" possible choices for 7, there must be exactly gn subsets of Y of which a is an element. Therefore |P(Y) = 4+ 97 = ott,