Sets & Notations: What Do S* and S* Mean?

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In summary, the conversation is about the meaning of the notations S* and S* in relation to a set, as well as the possibility of it being related to basic set theory or a more specific concept like "supremum/infimum". The person asking for clarification has a test that includes questions using this notation, but they do not have access to the relevant textbook to understand it fully. It is eventually revealed that S* represents the set of elements greater than all elements in A, while S* represents the set of elements smaller than all elements in A.
  • #1
RedGolpe
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I have seen different notations on different books but I couldn't find anywhere what S* and S* mean, being S a set. Anyone can help?
 
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  • #2
Without knowing the context, I doubt if anyone can say. I can think of a few possiblities such as "upper Riemann sum" and "lower Riemann sum" for an integral or "push forward" and "pull back" of a morphism, but those don't apply just to "sets".
 
  • #3
Thank you for your quick answer. I doubt it to be anything more complicated than very basic set theory. Unfortunately, I don't know the context myself, all I have is a simple test asking to answer true or false to several questions:

if l belogs to A* then l+1 does not belong to A*;
if l belogs to A* then there exists an epsilon>0 such that l-epsilon belongs to A*.

I suspect it's something like "A together with its supremum/infimum" or something pretty straightforward like that. I just wanted to know if anyone had seen this notation before, as I can still ask the person who gave me those tests to show me his textbook.
 
  • #4
The notation was surely explained just before the questions applying to it.
 
  • #5
Unfortunately not. As I said, this was a test sheet and I don't have access to the relevant textbook. Anyway I'd say it's obvious now that this is not standard notation, I'll check it on the book itself when it becomes available.

Edit: For all the curious here, I managed to obtain the textbook. A* is defined as the set of all the elements greater than all the elements in A. Similarly, A* is the set of all the elements smaller than all the elements in A.
 
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1. What is a set?

A set is a collection of distinct objects or elements. These objects can be numbers, letters, or any other type of object.

2. What is the notation for a set?

The notation for a set is typically represented by curly braces {}. For example, the set of even numbers can be written as {2, 4, 6, 8, ...}.

3. What does the asterisk (*) mean in set notation?

The asterisk (*) in set notation is used to represent a variable or unknown element. For example, S* could represent any element in the set S.

4. What is the difference between S* and S?

S* represents a variable or unknown element in the set, while S represents a specific element or a specific set of elements. S* is more general and can represent any element in the set, while S is more specific and represents a defined set.

5. How are sets and set notation used in mathematics?

Sets and set notation are used in mathematics to define and represent collections of objects or elements. They are often used in conjunction with operations such as union, intersection, and complement to solve problems and prove theorems in various fields of mathematics.

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