Sunday, 23 July 2017

combinatorics - Prove that P(X) has exactly binomnk subsets of X of k elements each.

Let set X consist of n members. P(X) is power set of X.



Prove that set P(X) has exactly \binom nk = \frac{n!}{k!(n-k)!} subsets of X of k elements each. Hence, show that P(X) contains 2^n members.
Hint: use the binomial expansion of (1 + 1)^n.




I'm trying to get more into math (proof writing first) so I got this from a book about Real Analysis. It's a short first sub-chapter which was an intro review of set theory and I have absolutely no idea how to do this particular problem given what has been said in 8 pages.



I 'know' that it's true, since I've tried it. I can also somewhat prove that P(X) has 2^n elements thinking of binary numbers. I can also see that the binomial expansion of (1 + 1)^n does tell the number of subsets of X that has k elements via the coefficients. I just don't know how they all fit together given that the author thinks they should.



I've also seen some questions in here proving the summation of \binom nk = 2^n, which was suppose to help, but I couldn't understand them at all given my limited math/combinatorics knowledge.

No comments:

Post a Comment

real analysis - How to find lim_{hrightarrow 0}frac{sin(ha)}{h}

How to find \lim_{h\rightarrow 0}\frac{\sin(ha)}{h} without lhopital rule? I know when I use lhopital I easy get $$ \lim_{h\rightarrow 0}...