[Math] A set for which it is hard to determine whether or not it is countable.

gm.general-mathematics

I got thinking recently, while trying to come up with a problem, that I did not know of any sets which were reasonable to define but for which it was very difficult to determine whether or not they were countable or uncountable.

When one first learns these concepts, it can be difficult, but with some experience, a mathematician can look at most sets which he or she meets in day-to-day and say almost immediately 'countable' or 'uncountable'.

What examples of sets are there for
which determining whether or not they
are countable is a difficult problem?

I won't define 'difficult' too rigorously but ideally I'm looking for something which any grad student can think about but which most would still be thinking about after 10 minutes.

Best Answer

A standard problem of this type is, can one draw uncountably many non-intersecting, non-degenerate figure-eights in the plane? The problem is trivially "yes" for circles, rather than figure-eights, so I found this problem surprising when I first saw it.