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Examples of Sets
 Set of standard playing card suits
 Set of SLU freshmen students for the
academic year 2015-2016
 Set of mathematics faculty members in
Saint Louis University (SLU)
 Set of distinct letters in the word
“university”
 Set of even numbers between 6 and 52
 Set of odd natural or counting numbers

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Examples of Sets
 Set of standard playing card suits
 Set of SLU freshmen students for the
academic year 2015-2016
 Set of mathematics faculty members in
Saint Louis University (SLU)
 Set of distinct letters in the word
“university”
 Set of even numbers between 6 and 52
 Set of odd natural or counting numbers

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Definition of a SET
 A SET is a well defined collection of
distinct objects.
 Any object that belongs to a set is called
a member or an element of the set.
 A set can be finite or infinite depending
on the number of its elements.
 Two sets are equal if and only if both
sets have exactly the same elements.
 A null set is a set having no elements.

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Describing Sets
There are two ways of describing, or
specifying the members of, a set:
 Intensional Definition
 Using a rule or semantic description
 Set-builder Notation or Rule Method
 Extensional Definition
 By way of listing each member of the set
 Listing or Roster Method

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Set-builder Notation or Rule
Method
 This is done by making use of a
variable, a colon (“:”) or vertical bar (“|”)
separator which is read as ‘such that’,
and a logical predicate or a rule that
describes all the elements of the given
set.
Illustration:
A = { x | x is an even number between 6 and 52 }
B = { x | x is an odd natural number }

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Listing or Roster Method
 This is done by writing all the
elements of the given set inside the
braces { }. For sets with many elements
or for an infinite set, the enumeration of
members can be abbreviated with the
use of ellipsis (“…”).
Illustration:
A = { 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30,
32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50 }
B = { 1, 3, 5, … }

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Venn Diagram
 A Venn diagram or set diagram is a
diagram that shows all possible logical
relations between a finite collection of
sets.
 Venn diagrams were conceived around
1880 by John Venn.

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Subset
 A set A is a subset of a set B if A is
“contained” inside B; that is, all elements
of A are also elements of B.
 A null set is always a subset of all sets.
 A set is a subset of itself.

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Proper and Improper
Subsets
 If A is a subset of B but A is not equal to
B, then A is a proper subset of B.
 The empty set is a proper subset of any
nonempty set.
 The subset consisting of all elements of
a given set is called an improper
subset.
 The empty set is an improper subset of
itself.

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Power Set
 The power set of a set S, usually
written as P(S), is the set of all subsets
of S.
 Note that the power set contains S itself
and the empty set because these are
both subsets of S.
 The power set of a finite set with n
elements has 2n elements. This
relationship is one of the reasons for the
terminology power set.

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Universal Set
 The universal set (which is also called
the sample space) is the set that
contains all the elements or objects
involved in a given situation or condition;
all other sets are subsets of the
universal set.

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Basic Operations on Sets
 Unions
 Sets can be “combined” to form a
new set.
 Intersections
 A new set can also be constructed
by determining the “common”
elements of two or more sets.
 Complements
 Sets can also be “subtracted”.

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Union of Sets
 The union of A and B is defined as the
set that consists of all elements
belonging to either set A or set B.

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Intersection of Sets


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Complement of a Set
 A complement of a set A is the set
whose elements are not found in A but
are found in the universal set.

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