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Chapter 14
Cardinality
One cannot begin to discuss the notion of cardinality without mentioning
sets. Philosophers and mathematicians have always used sets, e.g., alpha-
bet = {a, b, c, …, z}, N = the set of natural numbers, Q = the set of rational
numbers, R = the set of real numbers, etc. With sets, a natural question
arose: how many elements does a given set have? While this appears to be
a relatively easy question to answer, that is not quite so. Consider a set of
elements where it is dicult, if not impossible, to determine if a specic
element is or is not a member. How does one count the elements of such
a set? Another apparently eas ...