620 Design and Analysis of Algorithms
A.3 SETS
A set is a collection of entities that can be identifi ed. The entities are called members or elements of the set.
Sets are characterised by the concept of membership, denoted by symbol ∈.
a ∈ S implies entity a is a member of the set S.
a ∉ S implies entity a is not a member of the set S.
A set can be fi nite, for example, the set of non-negative integers less than 5. A small fi nite set is normally
written completely, for example, {1, 2, 3, 4}.
A set can be empty, for example, a set of all human beings aged more than 500 years. Such a set is also
called null-set and denoted by symbol φ.
A set can be infi nite, for example, the set of all C programs. This is not a fi nite set, since no matter how
large ...