Sets

A set is a collection of things.

For example, the items you wear is a set: these include shoes, socks, hat, shirt, pants, and so on.

You write sets inside curly brackets like this:

{socks, shoes, pants, watches, shirts, ...}

You can also have sets of numbers:

Set of whole numbers: {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}

Set of prime numbers: {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, ...}

Ten Best Friends

You could have a set made up of your ten best friends:

{alex, blair, casey, drew, erin, francis, glen, hunter, ira, jade}

Each friend is an "element" (or "member") of the set. It is normal to use lowercase letters for them.

Now let's say that alex, casey, drew and hunter play Soccer:
Soccer = {alex, casey, drew, hunter}

(It says the Set "Soccer" is made up of the elements alex, casey, drew and hunter.)

And casey, drew and jade play Tennis:

Tennis = {casey, drew, jade}

We can put their names in two separate circles:

Union

You can now list your friends that play Soccer OR Tennis.

This is called a "Union" of sets and has the special symbol ∪:

Soccer ∪ Tennis = {alex, casey, drew, hunter, jade}

Not everyone is in that set ... only your friends that play Soccer or Tennis (or both).
A Venn Diagram is clever because it shows lots of information:

Do you see that alex, casey, drew and hunter are in the "Soccer" set?

And that casey, drew and jade are in the "Tennis" set?

And here is the clever thing: casey and drew are in BOTH sets!

All that in one small diagram.

Intersection

"Intersection" is when you must be in BOTH sets.

In our case that means they play both Soccer AND Tennis ... which is casey and drew.

The special symbol for Intersection is an upside down "U" like this: ∩

And this is how we write it:

Soccer ∩ Tennis = {casey, drew}

Which Way Does That "U" Go?

Think of them as "cups": ∪ holds more water than ∩, right?

So Union ∪ is the one with more elements than Intersection ∩

Difference

You can also "subtract" one set from another.

For example, taking Soccer and subtracting Tennis means people that play Soccer but NOT Tennis ...
which is alex and hunter.

And this is how we write it:

Soccer − Tennis = {alex, hunter}

Summary So Far

∪ is Union: is in either set or both sets

∩ is Intersection: only in both sets

− is Difference: in one set but not the other

Three Sets

You can also use Venn Diagrams for 3 sets.

Let us say the third set is "Volleyball", which drew, glen and jade play:

Volleyball = {drew, glen, jade}

But let's be more "mathematical" and use a Capital Letter for each set:

S means the set of Soccer players

T means the set of Tennis players

V means the set of Volleyball players

You can see (for example) that:

drew plays Soccer, Tennis and Volleyball

jade plays Tennis and Volleyball

alex and hunter play Soccer, but don't play Tennis or Volleyball

no-one plays only Tennis

We can now have some fun with Unions and Intersections ...

This is just the set S

S = {alex, casey, drew, hunter}

This is the Union of Sets T and V

T ∪ V = {casey, drew, jade, glen}

This is the Intersection of Sets S and V

S ∩ V = {drew}

And how about this ...

take the previous set S ∩ V

then subtract T:

This is the Intersection of Sets S and V minus Set T

(S ∩ V) − T = {}

Hey, there is nothing there!

That is OK, it is just the "Empty Set". It is still a set, so we use the curly brackets with nothing inside: {}

The Empty Set has no elements: {}

Universal Set
The Universal Set is the set that has everything. Well, not exactly everything. Everything that we are
interested in now.

Sadly, the symbol is the letter "U" ... which is easy to confuse with the ∪ for Union. You just have to be
careful, OK?

In our case the Universal Set is our Ten Best Friends.

U = {alex, blair, casey, drew, erin, francis, glen, hunter, ira, jade}

We can show the Universal Set in a Venn Diagram by putting a box around the whole thing:

Now you can see ALL your ten best friends, neatly sorted into what sport they play (or not!).

And then we can do interesting things like take the whole set and subtract the ones who play Soccer:

We write it this way:

U − S = {blair, erin, francis, glen, ira, jade}

Which says "The Universal Set minus the Soccer Set is the Set {blair, erin, francis, glen, ira, jade}"

In other words "everyone who does not play Soccer".

Complement

And there is a special way of saying "everything that is not", and it is called "complement".

We show it by writing a little "C" like this:

Sc

Which means "everything that is NOT in S", like this:

Sc = {blair, erin, francis, glen, ira, jade}

(exactly the same as the U − S example from above)

Example

In a competition, a school awarded medals in different categories. 36 medals in dance, 12 medals in

dramatics and 18 medals in music. If these medals went to a total of 45 persons and only 4 persons got
medals in all the three categories, how many received medals in exactly two of these categories?

Solution:

Let A = set of persons who got medals in dance.

B = set of persons who got medals in dramatics.

C = set of persons who got medals in music.

Given,

n(A) = 36 n(B) = 12 n(C) = 18

n(A ∪ B ∪ C) = 45 n(A ∩ B ∩ C) = 4

We know that number of elements belonging to exactly two of the three sets A, B, C

= n(A ∩ B) + n(B ∩ C) + n(A ∩ C) - 3n(A ∩ B ∩ C)

= n(A ∩ B) + n(B ∩ C) + n(A ∩ C) - 3 × 4 ……..(i)

n(A ∪ B ∪ C) = n(A) + n(B) + n(C) - n(A ∩ B) - n(B ∩ C) - n(A ∩ C) + n(A ∩ B ∩ C)

Therefore, n(A ∩ B) + n(B ∩ C) + n(A ∩ C) = n(A) + n(B) + n(C) + n(A ∩ B ∩ C) - n(A ∪ B ∪ C)

From (i) required number

= n(A) + n(B) + n(C) + n(A ∩ B ∩ C) - n(A ∪ B ∪ C) - 12

= 36 + 12 + 18 + 4 - 45 - 12

= 70 - 67

=3

Example

Each student in a class of 40 plays at least one indoor game chess, carrom and scrabble. 18 play chess,
20 play scrabble and 27 play carrom. 7 play chess and scrabble, 12 play scrabble and carrom and 4 play
chess, carrom and scrabble. Find the number of students who play (i) chess and carrom. (ii) chess,
carrom but not scrabble.

Solution:

Let A be the set of students who play chess

B be the set of students who play scrabble

C be the set of students who play carrom

Therefore, We are given n(A ∪ B ∪ C) = 40,

n(A) = 18, n(B) = 20 n(C) = 27,

n(A ∩ B) = 7, n(C ∩ B) = 12 n(A ∩ B ∩ C) = 4

We have

n(A ∪ B ∪ C) = n(A) + n(B) + n(C) - n(A ∩ B) - n(B ∩ C) - n(C ∩ A) + n(A ∩ B ∩ C)

Therefore, 40 = 18 + 20 + 27 - 7 - 12 - n(C ∩ A) + 4

40 = 69 – 19 - n(C ∩ A)

40 = 50 - n(C ∩ A) n(C ∩ A) = 50 - 40

n(C ∩ A) = 10

Therefore, Number of students who play chess and carrom are 10.

Also, number of students who play chess, carrom and not scrabble.

= n(C ∩ A) - n(A ∩ B ∩ C)

= 10 – 4

=6
Example

In a group of 60 people, 27 like cold drinks and 42 like hot drinks and each person likes at least one of
the two drinks. How many like both coffee and tea?

Solution:

Let A = Set of people who like cold drinks.

B = Set of people who like hot drinks.

Given

(A ∪ B) = 60 n(A) = 27 n(B) = 42 then;

n(A ∩ B) = n(A) + n(B) - n(A ∪ B)

= 27 + 42 - 60

= 69 - 60 = 9

=9

Therefore, 9 people like both tea and coffee.