Simple subset question (confusing myself)

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the relationship between a set A and its complement in relation to another set B, particularly when A is a subset of B. Participants explore implications, definitions, and relationships involving set complements and intersections, with references to Venn diagrams and closure properties. The scope includes conceptual reasoning and mathematical exploration.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants suggest that A complement may contain elements both in and not in B, depending on specific cases.
  • One participant proposes that if A is a subset of B, then A intersection B equals A, leading to the conclusion that B is a subset of the complement of A.
  • Another participant expresses confusion regarding the implications of A being a subset of B and the conditions under which certain relationships hold.
  • Some participants discuss the closure of set B and its relationship to open sets disjoint from B, questioning definitions and the accuracy of their statements.
  • A participant notes that their initial definitions of boundary and closure were conflated, leading to misunderstandings in their reasoning.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the implications of the relationships between sets A and B, with no consensus reached on the validity of specific claims or definitions. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the precise nature of these relationships.

Contextual Notes

Participants highlight potential limitations in their understanding of set theory concepts, particularly regarding the definitions of closure and boundary, and the conditions under which certain implications hold.

1MileCrash
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If I know that A is a subset of B,

what can I say about the relationship between A-complement and B?
 
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Draw a Venn diagram.

There IS no relationship that I can see.
 
A complement probably contains elements that are in B, and also probably contains elements that are not in B, except for the weird cases where B is the whole universe or A=B. Do you have a specific problem in mind that inspired this question?
 
If A\subseteq B\subseteq X, then X\setminus A \supseteq X\setminus B.
 
economicsnerd said:
If A\subseteq B\subseteq X, then X\setminus A \supseteq X\setminus B.

That doesn't seem related to my question.
 
phinds said:
Draw a Venn diagram.

There IS no relationship that I can see.

Ok then, my logic broke down severely while doing this proof, somewhere. I'll have to post about it soon, but I'm still too "in the fray" to do it now.
 
Office_Shredder said:
A complement probably contains elements that are in B, and also probably contains elements that are not in B, except for the weird cases where B is the whole universe or A=B. Do you have a specific problem in mind that inspired this question?

Hey,

yeah, the proof is a little complex for my level and was probably dumb for me to attempt in the way I did, but basically my goal at this stage is that I'd have to show that:

A \cap B = \oslash
and
A \subseteq B

means precisely that

B \subseteq X \setminus A

Where X is the universe, and that top thing is the null set, which I couldn't find.

I'm really confusing myself. Do you guys think that this implication is even true? If one of these conditions is not required then it has to be that I messed up somewhere.

EDIT writing it out made me see that these two first conditions are (almost) not compatible..
 
I think in this case A is always the empty set. If A is a subset of B then A\cap B = A.

From there of course you can prove that B \subset X\setminus A but that's not a very interesting relationship anymore :-p
 
Office_Shredder said:
I think in this case A is always the empty set. If A is a subset of B then A\cap B = A.

From there of course you can prove that B \subset X\setminus A but that's not a very interesting relationship anymore :-p

Right, so I think I see my problem.

At the start, I said that the closure of a set B is equal to the complement of the union of all open sets which are disjoint from B. I don't see any definition that agrees with that anywhere, I just thought it seemed reasonable.
 
  • #10
The closure is
\bigcap_{i\in I} C_i
where the Ci are the closed sets containing B. Taking complements, let U_i = X\setminus C_i be the open sets which are disjoint from B. Then the closure of B is
= \bigcap_{i\in I} X\setminus U_i = X\setminus \bigcup_{i\in I} U_i
which is exactly how you are calculating the closure - I think your statement is an accurate description of the closure of B.

You might be better served just starting a new thread with your whole proof to figure out where it goes wrong at this point.
 
  • #11
Office_Shredder said:
The closure is
\bigcap_{i\in I} C_i
where the Ci are the closed sets containing B. Taking complements, let U_i = X\setminus C_i be the open sets which are disjoint from B. Then the closure of B is
= \bigcap_{i\in I} X\setminus U_i = X\setminus \bigcup_{i\in I} U_i
which is exactly how you are calculating the closure - I think your statement is an accurate description of the closure of B.

You might be better served just starting a new thread with your whole proof to figure out where it goes wrong at this point.

Ok, thanks a lot for the help, I'll post tomorrow. I'm very interested to know what's going wrong!
 
  • #12
Office_Shredder said:
The closure is
\bigcap_{i\in I} C_i
where the Ci are the closed sets containing B. Taking complements, let U_i = X\setminus C_i be the open sets which are disjoint from B. Then the closure of B is
= \bigcap_{i\in I} X\setminus U_i = X\setminus \bigcup_{i\in I} U_i
which is exactly how you are calculating the closure - I think your statement is an accurate description of the closure of B.

You might be better served just starting a new thread with your whole proof to figure out where it goes wrong at this point.

So wait, looking again, isn't your first line the definition of the boundary of B, not the closure?

Never mind, my notes are wrong.

It all makes perfect sense now. I defined boundary and closure to be essentially the same. Then I have it being equal to itself remove a union. The result pointed out above shows that all sets of the union are empty, which is true for that silly equality to work!

Finding errors are pretty fun.
 
Last edited:

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