|
Supplementary notes on countability by HA Priestley
Some suggestions for reading (mathematically rather than philosophically oriented)
1. T.M. Apostol, Mathematical Analysis, 2nd edition.
2. P.J. Cameron, Sets, Logic and Categories, parts of Ch. 1.
3. D. Goldrei, Classic Set Theory, parts of Ch. 6.
4. A.G. Hamilton, Numbers, Sets and Axioms, Ch.2.
Apostol gives an account geared to applications in analysis. The other books include not-
too-formal accounts of set theory. The one by Cameron is particularly suitable for contextual
reading and contains a lot of interestng material in an accessible form.
...
C.5 The Schröder–Bernstein Theorem.
Let $A$ and $B$ be sets and assume there exist injective maps $g : A → B$ and $h : B → A$. Then $A ≈ B$.
Proof. This does not need any fancy set-theoretic machinery. The most elegant proof makes use of a result known as the Tarski Fixed Point Theorem. This proof is given for example in [2], pp. 18–19.
SBT is particularly useful because it is often much harder explicitly to construct a bijection than to construct an injection. |
|