SOLUTION: What is the subset of T= {f,o,u,r}

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Question 1166893: What is the subset of T= {f,o,u,r}
Found 2 solutions by ikleyn, Edwin McCravy:
Answer by ikleyn(52781) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!


The question was formulated so inadequately that the sense eluded from it . . .



Answer by Edwin McCravy(20055) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
You must not have understood what the word "subset" means.  The question you
should have asked is not
"What is the subset of T= {f,o,u,r}?"
but this:
What ARE ALL the subsetS of T= {f,o,u,r}?
There are 16 subsets of T = {f,o,u,r}, not just one, as the way you worded the
question seems to show that you thought.  Here are the 16 subsetS:

 1. { }    <-- There is the empty subset, where you don't take any of the 
               members of the set T, which is {f,o,u,r}

Then there are the subsets where you take just 1 of the elements of {f,o,u,r}:
 2. {f}
 3. {o}
 4. {u}
 5. {r}

Then there are the subsets where you take just 2 of the elements of {f,o,u,r}: 
 6. {f,o}
 7. {f,u}
 8. {f,r}
 9. {o,u}
10. {o,r}
11. {u,r} 

Then there are the subsets where you take just 3 of the elements of {f,o,u,r}: 
12. {f,o,u}
13. {f,o,r}
14. {f,u,r}
15. {o,u,r}

Then there is just one "subset", called the "improper" subset, where we take
all four of the elements of {f,o,u,r}.  We call all the others "proper"
subsets, because they are properly "sub" (by the definition of "sub", which
means "not all of").  We like to consider a set to be "a subset of itself",
even though that's really not "proper".  So the set itself is the only
"improper" subset. So the "improper" subset is the set T itself:

16. {f,o,u,r}

The reason we like to call the empty set { } and the whole set "subsets", is
because doing so makes the formula for the number of subsets work, which is:

"The number of subsets of a set with N elements is 2N."

As you see from above the set {f,o,u,r} has 4 elements and the number of
subsets is 24 = (2)(2)(2)(2) = 16. 

And you see, as I said in the beginning, the question you should ask is not
"What is the subset of T= {f,o,u,r}?"
but this:
What ARE ALL the subsetS of T= {f,o,u,r}?
Edwin