From Stephen Abbott's Understanding Analysis (some parts omitted):
Exercise 1:
(a) Using the particular set $A = \{a,b,c\}$, exhibit two different $1-1$ mappings from $A$ into $P(A)$.
(b) Letting $B = \{1,2,3,4\}$, produce an example of a $1-1$ map $g: B \to P(B)$.
Exercise 2:
Construct $B$ using the following rule. For each element $a \in A$, consider the subset $f(a)$. This subset of $A$ may contain the element $a$ or it may not. This depends on the function $f$. If $f(a)$ does not contain $a$, then we include $a$ in our set $B$. More precisely, let $B = \{a \in A: a \notin f(a) \}$.
Return to the particular functions constructed in Exercise 1 and construct the subset $B$ that results using the preceding rule. In each case, note that $B$ is not in the range of the function used.
Solution Exercise 1:
(a) Given set $A = \{a,b,c\}$, $A$ can be mapped in a $1-1$ fashion into $P(A)$ in many ways. For example, we could write (i) $a \to \{a\}$, $b \to \{ a,c\}$, $c \to \{a,b,c\}$.
As another example we might say (ii) $a \to \{b,c\}$, $b \to \emptyset$, $c \to \{a,c\}$.
(b) An example of a $1-1$ mapping from $B$ to $P(B)$ is: $1 \to \{1\}$, $2 \to \{ 2,3,4\}$, $3 \to \{1,2,4\}$, $4 \to \{2,3\}$.
Solution Exercise 2:
For the example in (a) (i), the set $B = \{b\}$. For example (ii) we get $B=\{a,b\}$. In part (b) we find $B = \{3,4\}$. In every case, the set $B$ fails to be in the range of the function that we defined.
Question(s):
Could someone please help me understand what I am missing? I don't think I had any trouble with the first exercise, but my answer to the second was different. For (a) (i), I would have thought that $B = \{b,c\}$. For (a) (ii), I had $B = \{ a,b,c\}$. For (b), I had $\{ 2,3,4\}$.
I can't really seem to find a pattern, or figure out what I am doing wrong. I thought I might be getting confused with distinctions between elements and "the sets containing" elements, but I am not sure. For instance, with (a) (i) is the image $\{ \{ a\}, \{ a,c\} \{ a,b,c\}\}$ ? Is $a$ getting mapped to $a$ or to "the set containing $a$" which is written as $\{ a\}$? If it were the latter, I would think $B = \{ a,b,c\}$ instead, but this doesn't seem to make much sense…
So, as I said, if someone could help explain it all to me, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
Edit: The solutions in the block-text are not my own, they were those provided by the author…
Best Answer
To calculate $B$ systematically, I would recommend you to forget about the complete description for $f$; instead focus on one element $x$ and its image $f(x)$ at a time. One important thing to keep in mind is that $x$ is an element of the set $A = \{ a, b, c\}$, whereas $f(x)$ is a subset of $A$. So it is perfectly legitimate to ask whether $x \in f(x)$ or not.
Let me do the example (a)(i) in full.
The remaining exercises involve a similar reasoning; can you take it from here?
You are also asked to note that $B$ is not in the range $f$ in each case. Here, $f(A)$, the range of $f$, is a set containing subsets of $A$. For the above example, $$ f(A) = \{ \{a\}, \{ a,c \}, \{ a,b,c \} \}. $$ Also $B$ is just a subset of $A$ (this is actually even more evident). So the exercise asks you to check that $B$ is not an element of $f(A)$. In the above example, $B = \{ b \}$, and it is easy to verify that $b \not\in f(A)$.