# Homework Help: Partition sets

1. Feb 5, 2010

### Pengwuino

I was given a problem where I was to find two disjoint partitions, $$S_1$$ and $$S_2$$ and a set A such that |A| = 4 and $$|S_1| = 3$$ and $$|S_2| = 3$$.

Now the set I was using and the book eventually used was A = {1,2,3,4} and $$S_1 =$${{1},{2},{3,4}} and $$S_2 =$${{1,2},{3},{4}}.

The question I have is probably a few definition questions that the book just doesn't seem to be clear about. Do the S's have to be a collection of sets and not simply a set of numbers? For example, is $$S_1 =$$ {1,2,3} not a correct partition?

Also, the text asks for "disjoint" partitions, which I assume means $$S_1$$ and $$S_2$$ don't share any elements. However, isn't this part of the definition of a partition? That is, any two sets don't share any elements?

2. Feb 5, 2010

### SigmaKID

A partition of a set A is a collection that simply separates every element of the set A into disjoint non-empty subsets. Every element of the set A must appear once and only once in one of the subsets of the partition. $$S_1$$ = {{1,2,3}} is not a partition of the set A since 4 does not appear is any of the subsets. However, $$S_1$$ = {{1,2,3}, {4}} would be a partition, however its cardinality would be 2.

It is true that a partition is always a collection of disjoint subsets, however it is possible to have two partitions that are not disjoint, but distinct. For example $$S_1$$={{1,2}, {3}, {4}} and $$S_2$$={{1,3}, {2}, {4}} would be two distinct partitions of A, both with cardinality 3, however they are not disjoint because they share the element (of a partition which is a subset) {4}.

Last edited: Feb 5, 2010
3. Feb 5, 2010

### Pengwuino

Ok, I think my text is a bit confusing as it made it seem like S1 and S2 were required to make the set A.

For example, would S = {{1,2,3,4}} be a partition of A? And would S={1,2,3,4} be a partition of A?

4. Feb 5, 2010