I am reading the book "A Transition to Advanced Mathematics" 2014 edition, written by Smith, Eggen and St. Andre.
For every set X:
∅ ⊆ X
∅ ∈ power set of X
∅ ⊆ power set of X
{∅} ⊆ power set of X
Is {∅} ⊆ power set of X wrong?
I am an undergraduate student. Please help me!
The definition of power set of X is the set whose elements are subsets of X. (page 90 of the book)
I have this doubt because I remember that I read somewhere that ∅ ≠ {∅} because a set with the empty set is not empty.
Thanks for your answers!
What about this question:
If the definition of power set of X is the set whose elements are subsets of X, and {∅} is not a subset of X. How {∅} can be a subset of the power set of X? Is not that an contradiction?
Best Answer
Recall that $A\subseteq B$ if whenever $a\in A$, then we have that $a\in B$ as well.
Since $\varnothing\in\mathcal P(X)$, it means that every element of $\{\varnothing\}$ is also an element of $\mathcal P(X)$, so $\{\varnothing\}\subseteq\mathcal P(X)$ is indeed correct.