Why the Need for Axiom of Countable Choice? – Set Theory

axiom-of-choiceinfinityset-theory

Two theorems:

$(1)$ Countable Union of Countable Sets is Countable

$(2)$ Cartesian Product of Countable Sets is Countable

Linked are the formal proofs on Proofwiki.

I do not understand why they had to use the Axiom of Countable Choice (ACC) the first proof but settled with "from the definition of countable" in the second. I think that $(1)$ should depend on ACC iff $(2)$ depends on it.

Best Answer

The difference is that in the second proof we need to make only two choices: for each of $S$ and $T$ we must choose an injection into $\Bbb N$. Making a finite number of choices does not require any axiom of choice. In the first proof, however, we must make infinitely many choices, since we must choose an injection of each of the sets $S_n$ into $\Bbb N$, and that does require some choice principle.