On Ways to Show that the Cardinalities of $(0,1)$ and $\mathbb{R}$ are the Same

cardinalselementary-set-theory

"Everyone knows" that to show that $\mathbb{R}$ is uncountably infinite, it suffices to show that the real numbers in the interval $(0,1)$ cannot be listed, which can be accomplished by Cantor's famous diagonal argument.

My question is: How may I prove that the cardinalities of these two sets are the same? Is it only possible to show this by finding a bijection from one of these sets into another? Are there other ways?

Best Answer

Basically, you find a bijection between them to show both cardinalities are same. But here, even if you don't know the explicit map (bijection), between $\Bbb R$ and $(0,1)$, we can still say both are equivalent via some geometrical notion. For example, see the below figure

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The idea is : (replace $-1$ by $0$ in figure) Imagine $(0,1)$ bent into a semicircle that rests on the number line at $O$. Rays from the center of the semicircle establish a one-to-one correspondence between points of $(0, 1)$ and points of the line.