Am I right in my injective and surjective definition?

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Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around the definitions of injective, surjective, and bijective functions in the context of mathematics, specifically within the study of functions and mappings.

Discussion Character

  • Conceptual clarification, Assumption checking

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants explore informal definitions of injective and surjective functions, with some seeking clarity on the terminology used. Questions arise regarding the interpretation of "many to one" and the implications of these definitions on the understanding of bijections.

Discussion Status

Several participants provide feedback on the original poster's definitions, with some clarifying the terms and others confirming the correctness of the interpretations. There is an ongoing exploration of the relationships between the types of functions, particularly regarding their properties and definitions.

Contextual Notes

Participants express a preference for simpler, layman terms to aid in understanding, indicating a potential challenge with formal definitions. The discussion reflects a desire to grasp these concepts for exam preparation.

Firepanda
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In layman terms otherwise I have trouble understanding

Injective: A function where no element on the domain is many to one.

Surjective: All the elements in the codomain have at least one element from the domain that maps to them.

I'd like to keep it simple so I can play it back to myself in the exam, rather than trying to understand a formal definition, so I hope it's ok so far..

Then

Bijection: Any map where there is no many to one elements in the Domain, but all the elements in the co-domain have at least one element mapped to them.
 
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I'm not sure what you mean by "no element on the domain is many to one."

I would say of an injective function that "no element in the codomain is the image of more than one element of the domain," or "the function maps distinct points in the domain to distinct points in the codomain."

The definition of a surjection looks fine.

A bijection is simply a function that is both injective and surjective. The key fact here is that it has an inverse.
 
jbunniii said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "no element on the domain is many to one."

I would say "no element in the codomain is the image of more than one element of the domain," or "the function maps distinct points in the domain to distinct points in the codomain."

ah ok thanks, think I got a bit confused

so I can say for injections, there is at most one element in the domain that maps to one element in the codomain?

So bijections just map one distinct element in the domain to one distinct element in the codomain, such that all the elements in the codomain have an element mapped to them?
 
Firepanda said:
ah ok thanks, think I got a bit confused

so I can say for injections, there is at most one element in the domain that maps to one element in the codomain?

So bijections just map one distinct element in the domain to one distinct element in the codomain, such that all the elements in the codomain have an element mapped to them?

Yes, this is all correct.
 
yea surjection guarantees that the whole co-domain gets mapped, and injection guarantees that co-domain will be mapped by only one element.
 
Most simply, for f:A--> B,
injective: "if f(x)= f(y) then x= y" and
surjective: "If y is in B, there exist x in A such that f(x)= y".
 

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