MERRYLAND INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS

GRADE 9- ‘SETS’ LESSON NOTES

A set is a well defined collection of distinct objects.

The objects in the set are called its elements. Set notation uses curly braces, with
elements separated by commas.

A = {coat, hat, scarf, gloves, boots}, where A is the name of the set, and the braces
indicate that the objects written between them belong to the set.

Every object in a set is unique: The same object cannot be included in the set more
than once.

The following conventions are used with sets:

 Capital letters are used to denote sets.

 Lowercase letters are used to denote elements of sets.
 Curly braces { } denote a list of elements in a set.

Some more examples of a set.

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

Positive multiples of 3 that are less than 10: {3, 6, 9}

Types of set notation

i) Roster notation is a list of elements, separated by commas, enclosed in curly

braces. The curly braces are used to indicate that the elements written
between them belong to that set

N = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}

ii) Set-builder notation is a notation in which the elements of a set is listed out
according to a rule, such as:

1
This is pronounced as "the set of all x, such that x is an element of the natural numbers
and x is less than 10". The vertical bar is usually pronounced as "such that", and it
comes between the name of the variable you're using to stand for the elements and the
rule that tells you what those elements actually are.

Types of Sets

Empty set

A set which does not contain any element is called an empty set, or the null set or the
void set and it is denoted by ∅ and is read as phi. In roster form, ∅ is denoted by {}. An
empty set is a finite set, since the number of elements in an empty set is finite, i.e., 0.

For example: The set of whole numbers less than 0.

Clearly there is no whole number less than 0.

Therefore, it is an empty set. The cardinal number of an empty set, i.e., n(∅) = 0

Singleton Set:

A set which contains only one element is called a singleton set.

For example:

• A = {x : x is neither prime nor composite}

It is a singleton set containing one element, i.e., 1.

Finite Set:

A set which contains a definite number of elements is called a finite set. Empty set is
also called a finite set.

For example:

• The set of all colors in the rainbow.

• N = {x : x ∈ N, x < 7}
• P = {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, ...... 97}

Infinite Set:

The set whose elements are countless, i.e., set containing never-ending elements is
called an infinite set.

2
For example:

• Set of all points in a plane

• A = {x : x ∈ N, x > 1}

• Set of all prime numbers

Equivalent Sets:

Two sets A and B are said to be equivalent if their cardinal number is same, i.e., n(A) =
n(B). The symbol for denoting an equivalent set is ‘↔’.

For example:

A = {1, 2, 3} Here n(A) = 3

B = {p, q, r} Here n(B) = 3

Therefore, A ↔ B

Equal sets:

Two sets A and B are said to be equal if they contain the same elements. Every
element of A is an element of B and every element of B is an element of A.

For example:

A = {p, q, r, s}

B = {p, s, r, q}

Therefore, A = B

Disjoint sets

Two sets are said to be disjoint if they have no element in

common. Equivalently, disjoint sets are sets whose intersection
is the empty set.

Cardinal Number of a Set:

The number of distinct elements in a given set A is called the cardinal number of A. It is
denoted by n(A).

3
For example:

A {x : x ∈ N, x < 5}

A = {1, 2, 3, 4}

Therefore, n(A) = 4

Some of the different notations used in sets are:

Definition of Subset:

If A and B are two sets, and every element of set A is also an element of set B, then A is
called a subset of B and we write it as A ⊆ B

4
• Empty set is a subset of every set.

• Symbol ‘⊆’ is used to denote ‘is a subset of’.

For example;

1. Let A = {2, 4, 6}

B = {6, 4, 8, 2}

Here A is a subset of B

Since, all the elements of set A are contained in set B.

But B is not the subset of A

Since, all the elements of set B are not contained in set A.

Universal set

The set that contains all the elements or objects involved in the problem under
consideration; "all other sets are subsets of the universal set

Sets are usually named with a capital letter. Therefore, the universal set is usually
named with the capital letter U

Eg: U = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}, A = {1, 2, 5, 6}, B = {3, 9}

OPERATION ON SETS

The four basic operations are:

1. Union of Sets

2. Intersection of sets

3. Complement of the Set

Union of two sets

The union of two sets A and B is the collection of points which are in A or in B or in both
A and B. In symbols,

5
Intersection of two sets

The intersection A ∩ B of two sets A and B is the set that contains all elements of A that
also belong to B (or equivalently, all elements of B that also belong to A), but no other
elements

and

x ∈ A ∩ B if and only if

 x ∈ A and
 x ∈ B.

Complement of a set

The complement of a set A is the set of elements that are not members of A but
members of the Universal set. Notation: Ac or A'.

Venn Diagrams

Pictorial representations of sets represented by closed figures are called Venn

diagrams.

Venn diagrams are used to illustrate various operations like union, intersection and
difference.

We can express the relationship among sets through this in a more significant way.

In this,

• A rectangle is used to represent a universal set.

• Circles or ovals are commonly used to represent other subsets of the universal set.

6
Venn diagrams in different situations

• If a set A is a subset of set B, then the circle

representing set A is drawn inside the circle
representing set B.

• If set A and set B have some elements in common,

then to represent them, we draw two circles which are
overlapping.

• If set A and set B are disjoint, then they are represented by two non-intersecting
circles.

In these diagrams, the universal set is represented by a rectangular region and its
subsets by circles inside the rectangle.