[Math] Can every infinite set be divided into pairwise disjoint subsets of size $n\in\mathbb{N}$

axiom-of-choiceset-partitionset-theory

Let $S$ be an infinite set and $n$ be a natural number. Does there exist partition of $S$ in which each subset has size $n$?

  1. This is pretty easy to do for countable sets. Is it true for uncountable sets?

  2. If (1) is true, can it be proved without choice?

Best Answer

The answer is yes, under the axiom of choice, such a partition is possible. There are several ways of seeing this. For example, choice gives us that any set is in bijection with an infinite ordinal. But, for any infinite ordinal $\alpha$, there is a bijection between $\alpha$ and $\alpha\times \{1,\dots,n\}$. The bijection is in fact canonical, in the sense that there is a "uniform" procedure that applied to any infinite ordinal $\alpha$ produces such a bijection. If you are somewhat familiar with ordinal numbers, a proof can be found in this blog post of mine.

Of course, if $\alpha$ is in bijection with $X$, then $\alpha\times \{1,\dots,n\}$ is in bijection with $X\times \{1,\dots,n\}$, so the latter is in bijection with $X$. The required partition is then the image under the bijection of the sets $A_a=\{(a,i)\mid 1\le i\le n\}$, for $a\in X$.

(To mention but one other standard argument, using choice, we have that $X$ and $X\times X$ are in bijection so, invoking the Bernstein-Schroeder theorem, we conclude that $X$ and $X\times\{1,\dots,n\}$ are in bijection as well.)

On the other hand, the answer is no, without the axiom of choice it is in general not possible to produce such a partition. This is addressed at length in this MO answer, with details in the references linked there.